


The Green Ribbon

by xzombiexkittenx



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Canon Divergence, Chronic Illness, Chronic Pain, Enemies to Lovers, Enemies to enemies who fuck, I don't care a fig for the Palpatine plotline, Kylo is/has a big dick, Kylux Big Bang 2020, M/M, Major Hux, NOT Bloodline compliant, Naboo Fashion, Organized Crime, Pre-TFA, Senator Ben Amidala - Freeform, Sumptuary laws, Switching, bloodline the book, disorganized crime, not bloodline my Hannibal fic, or bloodline the TV show, space marijuana, the First Order's shady business dealings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-09
Updated: 2021-01-13
Packaged: 2021-03-12 06:14:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 39,679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28630845
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xzombiexkittenx/pseuds/xzombiexkittenx
Summary: Art byLilanderWhen Ben was fifteen he left the Jedi temple and took extreme measures to prevent the shadowy creature that infiltrated his thoughts from dragging him to the dark side. What he did left him with a great deal of chronic pain and removed his most valuable weapon, but Ben got his stubbornness from every side of the family, even the adopted ones, and he was determined to find and kill the creature.Now Senator Amidala of Naboo, Ben uses his position to make the galaxy a less awful place when he can, but being senator also gave him very useful contacts in his search for the creature. When he met Major Hux of the First Order, Ben thought he could get game-changing information out of him, one way or another, but things rarely go Ben's way and it got complicated much faster than Ben had prepared for. It's never a good idea to mix sex and politics, but Ben takes his fun where he can get it.
Relationships: Armitage Hux/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 19
Kudos: 129
Collections: Kylux Big Bang 2020





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Firstly, and most importantly, my endless thanks to the artist for this endeavour, Lilander, for her patience with me. My covid-times have been difficult and I fell behind on this fic almost immediately and never really recovered. She stuck with me, and I really appreciate it because her art is _fantastic_ and I love it so much. You can find her [here on AO3](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lilander), and on [Twitter.](https://twitter.com/lilandersw)
> 
> I have not read _Bloodline_ or any other extended universe book or comic, although I basically live on Wookieepedia these days. This fic came about because I stumbled across the backstory that the FO used to use drug cartels to get capital, which makes total sense and is just the kind of shady shit juntas love. This isn’t a retelling, I just heard about the money laundering thing and went off on my own with it so the names of the gangs, the locations of their operations, and the way the FO is laundering money was all taken from the wookieepedia but nothing else. Any resemblance to the book is because I used some of the backstory Claudia Gray et al came up with.
> 
> This story features a character with chronic health issues. Please bear in mind that health, pain, ability levels, symptoms, and ways of managing are unique to each person.
> 
> The title comes from one of the other scary stories in the children’s book _In a Dark, Dark Room and Other Scary Stories_ written by Alvin Schwartz and illustrated by Dirk Zimmer. Later in this fic, one of the characters recounts “the Green Ribbon,” and it’s exactly as creepy and weird as my summary makes it sound.

It didn't make sense, Ben thought desperately. He hadn't faltered, even when staying the course had cost him dearly. He'd given up _everything_ , he'd done so many terrible things, and the creature had still found him.

Ben was crouched behind the large rock not far from the main temple, where two-tailed reptiles would bask on sunny days. That night there was only Ben, hunkered in the dirt, the hem of his delicate formal skirts torn and muddied, the paint on his face smeared half off from sweat, and his hands blackened by ash. He'd tried to look for the others, but all he'd found was char and endless copies of the sacred texts, burned now, beyond saving, all the writing illegible, except for the names of the dead.

The Jedi temple itself was a smouldering ruin, beams like broken bones sticking out of the wreckage. Smoke that stank of burning bodies billowed out and the wind carried it to Ben, the stench thick in his nose and mouth. He pressed a sleeve to his face, but all it did was smear white and red paint onto the fabric, it didn't block out the smell.

If he stuck his head out far enough from behind his hiding place, Ben could see seven warriors. Their helmets were illuminated by the red glow of their force-weapons, grotesque shadows cast over already grotesque masks. The warriors were looking for him. They'd been looking for him for years, and no matter where he went, or how fast he ran, they were always right behind him.

And the children… All the Jedi younglings were dead. Even Sorrsa who was only six and who liked it when Ben swung her around in circles by her hands. She had just lost her first tooth and had been so excited to show him the gap. She was dead. And Luke was—

It didn't matter about Luke now. Ben had to run.

He stayed in a half-crouch, moving towards the woods where there would be more cover, but every step was agonizingly slow, the very air dragging at his limbs. And he still couldn't keep the creature out of his head.

The creature was a second shadow haunting his every step. He spoke to Ben in a hundred voices, including Ben’s own, until he couldn't tell their thoughts apart. The creature told him the pain would stop; that all his darkest impulses were his to fulfill; that he had a great destiny; that running wouldn't save him.

Ben dragged himself down one of the Falcon's passageways on his hands and knees. If he could get to a hidden compartment and conceal himself, maybe he'd be safe. His Padawan's robes caught on the metal grating of the floor, pulling at him, holding him back, but he had to keep going. He panted for breath, the thick collar and chains wrapped around his throat were so heavy. They made it hard to keep his head up, and he couldn't think, his thoughts weren't his own, he was never going to escape so long as the creature was in his head.

He'd just made it to the door of Leia’s city apartment when a booted foot stepped into his field of vision. Ben dragged his head up and saw the leader of the warriors. The master of the knights was masked and hooded, like the others, and he had a long, tattered cape flowing behind him. The warrior raised a lightsaber that crackled and buzzed, two vents like a crossguard on the hilt.

The warrior cocked his head to the side and spoke to Ben. The helmet's vocoder had to be broken because the only sound that came out was a high-pitched alarm.

The warrior reached out a black-gloved hand, arm outstretched, fingers gripping the air, and Ben began to choke. He clawed at his throat until his hands and wrists ached, but couldn't break free and the alarm wouldn't stop.

The alarm.

Ben opened his eyes. He was lying in bed, soaked in cold sweat, heart hammering in his chest. His face was smashed into the pillow, which explained why he'd been having trouble breathing, and he had his elbows turned in by his belly, wrists bent at ninety-degrees under his chin, and rotated outwards, every muscle locked and rigid. Ben turned his face just enough to breathe and unclenched his hands, wincing.

The fog from the nightmare began to clear, although not the lingering dread, and Ben realized several things all at once: he could still hear the sound of an alarm; he could hear an alarm because his personal comm was going off; it was what he liked to call ‘pfassk-off o'clock in the morning.’

His wrists ached to the point of weakness, and his forearms burned with lactic acid but he reached back behind himself, rotating his shoulder painfully so he didn't have to move his head, and grabbed the comm, thumbing it on.

"Pfassk off," Ben mumbled.

"Morning, Senator Amidala,” said the voice of his personal assistant, Paige Tico, as calm and cheerful as if she hadn’t heard him. Which she absolutely had. "I'll be in to see you in one standard hour."

There was an expectant pause.

"Senator?"

"Thank you, Paige, I'm awake."

"Sure," Paige said, and stayed on the line.

"I'm up, on my feet. Promise," Ben lied.

"Yessir," Paige said disingenuously.

Ben rolled onto his back very slowly. Even still, the movement of his head set off a series of brain shocks. Strange pulses, like someone was shooting electrical currents through his brain. It was going to be a bad day, Ben could tell.

The bedroom of the apartments for the Senator of Naboo had been decorated with blue-green mirror glass, meant to evoke the natural landscape of the planet. It was a beautiful piece of art. With the curtains drawn and the accent lamps tastefully scattered around the room set at ten percent, the whole thing shimmered and twinkled like the night sky away from the light pollution of the cities. And if it was a sunny day the light reflected brilliantly as if it was bouncing off water. What made it all the more clever was that there was a pattern to the mosaic, and when the light wasn’t so dazzling, you could see the sheer artistry that went into the design.

When Ben was in better health, it felt like he was floating gently underwater in placid seas, peaceful and quiet. On his bad days, he thought it looked like something you’d see in a mausoleum.

He thumped his head against the pillow, setting off a new round of brain zaps and the horrible thudding body shocks. Today the shocks reached all the way from his heart to his fingertips and toes. Not a good day.

Ben clenched his aching hands and tightened every muscle in his body. He took another deep breath in, let it out, and relaxed all his muscles, opening his hands. Various healers had told him doing that would make him feel better.

"Fuck you, I'll feel better," he muttered, and slowly levered himself upright.

He stayed there for a moment, waiting for the vertigo to settle and his blood pressure to even out.

"I'm up," he said into the comm, and cut the connection.

The absolute motherfuck of the situation was how much of it he couldn't just write off as a nightmare. The creature from his dreams was real; it had been in his head and, in the past, been so embedded in his every thought he couldn't tell them apart. The warriors were also real, although he'd never seen them in person, only in visions the creature had shown him. It was because of them that he had some of the best personal security anyone could acquire—and on special occasions he had Rey, who was only seventeen but was also his uncle’s Padawan and a prodigy in the Force. She annoyed the shit out of him the way that only family could, blood or not, but if someone with the Force attacked, he wasn’t going to find anyone better to fight them off.

The warriors were deterred in traditional ways; the creature was not. Only Ben could fight him, and until he found where the creature was, hunted him down, and cut his fucking head off, Ben was never going to be free.

Still, the temple hadn't burned. The younglings hadn't died. Ben hadn't stayed, training and foolishly hoping he’d be strong enough to keep from falling to the dark side. He’d taken his fate into his own hands instead of waiting for the creature to find him and raze his life to ash. Shortly after his sixteenth birthday, Ben had left a note, his padawan’s robes, and his lightsaber behind, snuck out of the complex in the middle of the night, stolen Luke's ship, and fled.

His eyes prickled with tears thinking about it. This current round of medications made him prone to fits of weepiness and it enraged him.

"Don’t you dare give up," he said between gritted teeth. "Coward. Pull yourself together."

He put his full weight on his feet and pushed himself up, just a little, to test his steadiness. Without the lingering vertigo, he might have risked going unassisted, but his hips and knees hurt when he put weight on his legs. Ben blinked back furious tears and clenched his teeth until his jaw ached.

His bed was lower and the mattress firmer than people expected it to be. More than one lover had assumed his bed would be tall enough to bend someone over. But the height of the frame and mattress was carefully calculated. It was exactly the right height to make sliding into a wheelchair as easy as possible. It made it a little bit harder to stand up, but there was also a railing next to the bed so he could pull himself to his feet, and doubled as a place to hang his house-cane.

Ben gripped the railing and heaved himself upright. The shocks pulsed through him again and Ben had to deliberately unclench his jaw before he added a toothache to his troubles. The house cane was designed for utility, not appearance. It was ugly, like a lot of practical mobility devices tended to be, but the trifurcated end was stabilizing and it did the job. He kept meaning to replace it with something prettier, but inevitably he forgot until he had to use it again.

Cautiously Ben shuffled to the en suite refresher. While the shocks continued to plague him, the vertigo finally seemed to be easing. He still used the chair in the sonic, not willing to risk a fall and have Paige find him passed out naked on the floor. Again.

After that, he parked himself at the vanity in his dressing room and started his daily routine. His father liked to poke fun at the skin-care part of the process, but Han didn’t wear full traditional court paint every day. It looked significantly less impressive when it was pasted unevenly over massive outbreaks of acne, so Ben scrubbed and cleansed and moisturized with the same religious dedication that he had once had for his Jedi training.

He plucked a few stray eyebrow hairs and frowned at the lines he was sure he could see developing at the corners of his eyes and bracketing his mouth. Of all his various problems, he was not going to be happy if premature aging from pain was one of them. He’d lost most of his weapons, he didn’t want to lose his looks on top of that. Good looks were more useful than a lightsaber when it came to the senate, and with a careful application of paint, the right clothing, and his ears hidden, he could make people think he was attractive.

Leia had had a few things to say about his devotion to traditional Nabooian culture when he first decided to move to Naboo and get into galactic politics. At heart, she was more a general than she’d ever been a princess, and he knew the idea of getting herself up in court clothing interested her about as much as competitive Golthian slug racing; that is to say, not at all. Most of her arguments came back to the fact that his grandmother herself had thrown off her position as queen to join the rebellion. Ben replied that he didn’t mind all the fuss and effort, and moreover, although Padmé’s actions were plenty admirable, there was no more rebellion to join and, frankly, there were worse people in the family he could emulate.

Ben and Leia didn’t talk for a week or so after he threw Vader in her face, but time passed, and Leia got used to seeing him in the clothing of a people she didn’t identify with and he certainly hadn't grown up with, and eventually she stopped mentioning it.

The white base went on from his hairline down past his collarbone, applied with an angled brush that allowed him to work the paint into the creases of his nose and right up to his waterline. He left the backs of his ears and a V-shape at his nape unpainted, as was traditional, but everything else was covered. He had to shift the plain band of metal that wasn’t quite a necklace and wasn’t quite a choker that he wore out of the way to make sure he got everywhere. Then he had to sit there, holding the necklace away from his skin while the paint dried enough to powder, but it gave him time to check his ears and make sure he hadn’t missed any of the trickier spots. Then powder to set it all.

Han, back when Ben first started wearing the necklace, had called it a collar, and said something nasty about Ben’s decisions (a running theme when it came to his parents) but when Han got mad like that it meant he was worried, so now Ben ignored his comments. At the time, he’d shouted right back and they’d both thrown a few things at various walls, but that was then, and they’d both mellowed out a great deal in the years since that day.

Once the white base was laid down, Ben tidied the edges of his brows to wipe off any misplaced paint, and used a pencil to give them a more precise outline and darken them. Ben then lined his eyes in black and curled his lashes before applying mascara. The red details were the hardest to get right, especially on days when his hands were shaky. Paige had become rather good at making him up on the days he couldn’t do it himself but was still well enough to sit in senate, or to appear via holo.

That day his hands were steady enough that he could do it himself without too much trouble. One red dot on each cheek, a stripe down the middle of his bottom lip and down the centre of his chin, and because it was a bad morning, Ben decided he would put in a little extra effort to help conceal how much like shit he felt. He glued three red gems to his forehead which would nicely match with the hanging beads on the headpiece he was planning on wearing that day. The last touch wasn’t traditional, but he liked the way it looked. Very carefully, Ben removed the paint from over the darkest of his moles so it looked almost like someone had flicked ink at him.

For a minute Ben just sat there, staring at himself and feeling like he was looking at a stranger. Suddenly he didn’t recognize the man in front of him, something distorted about the image, something unfamiliar. The disassociation would get worse if he started examining his own hands, Ben knew from experience, so he ignored the feeling and instead opened up the little jewelry box on his vanity and began the second part of his daily routine.

The box was made of perfectly polished wood inlaid with the horn from some vicious, hard-to-kill creature that had been hunted almost to extinction. The interior was divided into many little compartments, each with their own tiny lid of wood and horn. It was extremely expensive, and had been a gift from a minor Kuat noble Ben had spent a very memorable week with. Traditionally the box was meant to hold jewelry. Earrings, Ben had been told. He used it to hold his pills.

Over the years, the contents had changed as symptoms changed, medication lost its efficacy, or he found something that worked better. For the time being, his mornings started with a mild blood thinner, an anti-nausea pill, a protein builder to help his damaged stomach lining, a series of vitamin supplements, one that was an unholy combination of antifungal and weapons-grade anti-allergen that attacked his blood like radiation would, and an anti-epileptic. There was also a painkiller, but it seemed to be working less each day, and he was already at the highest dose he could take before it started making him foggy and unable to work. Another thing to deal with later.

Ben’s stomach was touchy on the best of days, so he took his time, one pill after another, steady but not rushed. He made the mistake of catching his own eye in the mirror again and lost more time, half outside his body.

“Senator?”

Ben blinked and looked up at Paige. She was only just behind him and to his left, and behind her was Dosheny Pels, the up-and-coming young designer from Naboo who Ben had hired to dress him. He gave her mostly free reign, even with redesigning some of his more traditional attire, and she never disappointed.

“I was…” Ben said. “Has it been an hour?”

“Not quite,” Paige admitted, putting a bag down on the table in front of him. “I wanted to make sure you hadn’t gone back to bed. It sounded like you were having a bad day.” She slung herself into the chair in the corner of his dressing room and put her legs up over one arm, balancing her datapad on her stomach and thighs.

Dosheny took one look at her chrono, gave Ben an earful, helped him get to his feet, and then started wrestling him into the ten underlayers that made up part of the jūnihitoe he was wearing that day. She wasn’t exactly gentle, but she didn’t smear any of the paint, so he didn’t mind.

When Dosheny's swearing had dwindled down to the odd mutter, and Ben had the first three layers on, Paige began her morning update. “You were supposed to be eating with the Nasine senator, but she’s got the Jardanian Pox and is under quarantine for the next week and a half. So now it’s breakfast with the Hevurion delegate to talk about your healthcare proposal.” Ben made a face but Paige was already saying, “Since there’s no chance you’ll get through the Hevurion idea of a morning meal without karking up the rest of your day, I’ve spoken to the staff and arranged for you to be provided with an alternative. They’ve got a tradition of having a selection of small dishes at midday, and a lot of those dishes are going to be less problematic for you. Plus, it’s served in a lot of small pieces, so it looks like more food than it is, won’t smudge your paint, and can be picked at without offending the Hevurion’s that you didn’t take part in their native cuisine. Stick to water and don't drink caf because you know it upsets your stomach. I don't care how tired you are, do not drink it, Ben, I swear to the gods, do not drink it. Their usual morning beverage is...thick? I don’t know, but it smells off so probably don't drink that either. Also, open the bag I brought. You’re too heavy for me to carry if you pass out and you have shit to do.”

He paused between uchigi layers —there would be six total, each in a different colour shading from true plum, through plum-pink, to pink-scarlet— and had a look to see what she’d brought him. Inside were a few containers, and when he pulled one out and opened the duraplex he discovered Paige had swung by the kitchens on her way up, and brought him the tried and true combination of perfectly toasted bread, barely sweetened sauce made from a local fruit, and an entire mug of kef. With a little trial and error Ben’s dietician had discovered a small number of foods that Ben could usually manage to eat without confining him to the refresher for an hour afterwards. It wasn’t considered polite to rush out of meetings without warning or explanation, no matter what your digestive system was doing, but if he didn’t eat the vertigo was worse, and so was his temper.

“Then it’s the organized crime subcommittee until a midday recess,” Paige said. “There’s a delegation from Deshirraan who have been pressing me for a meeting, so you’ll have a half-hour luncheon with them and you'll be provided with a specialised meal. After that you’ve got another thirty minutes before you’re due in the senate. Senator Zothmar is putting forward a motion to fund his project. You’ve stated publicly that you’re against it, but Senator Organa asked me to remind you that she’s your mother and she’s disappointed in you.”

Ben carefully ripped a piece of crust off the toast and put it in his mouth, even though it made Dosheny glare at him. “Tell her I’m not anti-intellectual,” he said. “I respect that there is some merit in exploring the science, but also that I expect the former Princess of what's left of Alderaan to take a more militant stance on planet-destroying ordinance and its active development.”

Paige rolled her eyes. “I will one-hundred percent not do that,” she said. “Senator Organa is a lot more frightening than you are. If you want to tell her that, there is policy set in place for you to present your own arguments on the floor, and might I suggest that debating it in the senate might be better for your relationship than arguing when you see each other informally.”

“I’ll...consider that,” Ben said grudgingly.

“Still okay to stand?” Dosheny asked.

When she was done, he would be wearing nearly fifty imperial pounds of clothing. It didn’t even include the weight of the headdress that went with it, or the extensions he would add to make his hair reach the floor. It was probably good his job was so sedentary, because some days he wondered how his grandmother, who by all accounts was not a large woman, had managed to even stand upright.

Ben grunted a vague affirmative, which apparently no one took seriously because Dosheny went to find a cane that matched the spring plum colour scheme of the jūnihitoe, and Paige popped up to grab the very narrow but very tall little stool he could unfold under his skirts so he could sit without spoiling the perfect folds of his clothing. When they were confident he wasn’t going to buckle under the weight of his formal dress, Paige got comfortable again, and Dosheny helped him slip the stiff, dark violet layer of the uchiginu over the sixth uchigi layer. It was about as close to the royal blue-purple as he could get without causing an incident, and it was verging on cheeky.

Paige found her place on her datapad and made a short note. Then she said, “You were supposed to dine with Bhun Gattecand after the floor closes, but I thought three public meals might be pushing it so I’ve postponed it and it’ll give you more time to get dressed for Jal Keed’s charity cocktail party tonight.”

“Remind me what it’s for?”

“The cleanup-slash-salvage operation on Taris.”

“Oh!” Ben said, brightening. “I forgot that was today. Did I plan an outfit for that already or do I need to pick something now? Something that says: this is a great idea that I knew nothing about before he proposed it.”

Dosheny got a covetous look in her eyes. “I have something new, if it’s not already planned,” she said hopefully.

Paige groaned. “No! You showed me already, and it's too aggressive, and the circlet allowed for those in a noble household where one member was king or queen isn’t supposed to be made of spikes! That's not how it's supposed to look! Her Highness will not be happy so soon after the last…”

“Incident?” Ben said.

“Triumph of fashion?” Dosheny said.

“Debacle,” Paige said. She flicked through her datapad with finality. “You’re wearing the modern, slinky, pale gold. Not the one with the train, in case you need assistance, the one with the open back strung with pink pearls, and the difficult sleeves. Nothing that would offend traditionalists. You can’t offend the queen for at least another week. I mean it. She’s already going to wring your necks over that violet shade, don't think I didn’t notice, you two.”

Ben had a contentious relationship with Queen Kirré Shibor of Naboo. He thought Kirré was a silly child, and she thought he was an arrogant ass.

Sometimes, Ben reflected, both people in an argument could be right. If he pushed her too hard on how Naboo ought to be governed or if he did things she didn’t like in senate, she tended to get precious about the little things, like what he was or was not allowed to wear without it being considered treasonous. Ultimately though, she was a figurehead, and he was the one up to his neck in galactic politics and everything that came with it. He tried not to be too ungracious about winning most of their arguments. She was only fourteen, after all.

“It’s avant-garde!” Dosheny protested. “Deconstructing the circl—”

Paige put a hand over her face. “Gods, please, no. I don’t care about your art-school blah blah blah. I’ll look at your new draft of the design later, but he is not wearing it tonight.”

“I could at least look at it. If I’m in my chair the pearls down the back won’t look as good,” Ben pointed out.

Dosheny beamed hopefully at Paige but Paige just shook her head. “Ben, you’re going to be worn down from hauling the jūnihitoe around the senate. Give yourself a break for a few hours. Wear something light. And by light I mean revealing and slutty.” Her voice turned gentle as she said, “If you’re in the chair then I’m strongly going to suggest you take the night off. It’s not so important you can’t skip it, especially if you donate publicly afterwards.”

“Ugh,” Ben agreed, because she was right, but she didn’t have to say it like his feelings were as fragile as his health. At least he liked Keed. And at least Jal Keed would appreciate it if he wore something a little less traditional and a lot more scandalous.

X X X

Senate sub-committee positions were one of those things where a seat was either a coup, or a punishment. Ben had worked his way up from the least desired committees, to one of the most coveted: the one on organized crime.

Saying you were tough on organized crime was a gimme: an easy way to look good in front of the Senate, the Republic, and one’s own constituents. It was also an excellent way to line your own pocket, because the committee members who could be subtle with how they steered a vote were often courted by the heads of syndicates and mob families and offered substantial bribes.

Ben, admittedly, had a bit of a leg-up on the others considering that he’d grown up with Han Solo for a father, and Lando Calrissian, Maz Kanata, and Honda Onaka were aunts and uncles in every way except by blood. Even Luke had also shown a surprising knowledge of chop shops, black markets, and how to make people think you’re much dumber than you are while haggling so ruthlessly Maz herself was impressed. Ben knew more about smuggling, embargos, unofficial trade channels, organized and unorganized crime, and six dozen types of racket before he’d lost all his baby teeth than half his fellow committee members ever would.

His familial ties to organized (and disorganized) crime aside, Ben was actually good at his job. He’d tried weaponizing Luke’s style of feigned vapidity-slash-innocence for a while, but it was harder to get things done and people kept trying to grope him, which he didn’t much care for. Now he just used the pageantry of Naboo garb to distract the stupider sort of people, and got on with it. He was getting a reputation for being unpredictable in his politics, which Ben thought was just another way of people saying they hadn’t figured out he wasn’t a puppet of his mother’s and kept being surprised when he did something she wouldn’t.

The schedule for that morning’s meeting was heavy on public hearings and the room was packed cheek to jowl with beings from all over the New Republic, and beings from planets who were considering joining the Republic, or had a bone to pick with the Senate over one thing or another. A glymphid was making their way down the aisle to the floor, a sheaf of flimsi clutched in their hands, ready to bring some issue before the committee. The poor glymphid didn’t notice the leg some inconsiderate jerk had stuck out into the aisle to give themselves more room, tripped spectacularly, and dropped all the flimsi that hadn’t stuck to the suckers on their fingers.

There was tittering and someone clapped in the same way inconsiderate people always clapped when someone else dropped something.

The person whose leg it was looked human; a very tall blonde woman who was slouched in her seat, arms crossed. She scarcely seemed to have noticed the glymphid, engaged instead in talking to the man in the chair next to her. She didn’t make any effort to get her leg out of the aisle.

As striking as she was, the man next to her was something else altogether. He looked as though he was probably tall as well, and his pale, pointed face was set in an expression of disdain. What caught Ben’s attention was his hair. It was slicked back from his face and probably darkened by whatever he’d used to hold it in place, but under the bright lights of the senate building it was still a vivid copper.

Ben muted his microphone and turned in his chair to talk to Paige, who was sitting behind him. “Woman with the long legs and bad manners, and the matchstick next to her?”

Paige shook her head. “Not sure, this is definitely the first time I’ve seen them, I’d remember her. She looks like a gun for hire but he’s got to be military.”

Ben took in the man’s ramrod posture and what little he could see of his clothing. He was dressed in black, buttoned up to his chin, and although Ben couldn’t see any visible insignias on his coat, Paige was right: he did look military. Off the top of his head Ben could think of a great number of planets whose military made appearances around the Senate in uniform. He could think of a dozen more who came but tried to dress like civilians. But this man wasn’t seated with those groups, so more probably he had to be with some new organization come to watch the meeting.

“I want to know who they’re with,” Ben said as the glymphid finally got to the microphone and lectern on the floor and then had to start rearranging all their flimsi back into the correct order.

“You want to fuck the ginger,” Paige said, low and amused.

Paige wasn’t wrong. Ben had a fondness for redheads dating back to the time he was three years old and proposed marriage to Mon Mothma. At the time everyone had pretended to take it very seriously because he had horrible tantrums and crying fits if he thought he was being made fun of. The second he was old enough not to be upset, Leia had not-so-innocently reminded everyone of it, and now no one in his family was ever going to let it go as long as he lived. He’d embraced it.

Ben gave Paige a cheery wink and turned back in his seat to give the glymphid his full attention.

As the glymphid began addressing the committee, Ben tried to keep his focus where it ought to be but he kept catching himself gazing at the redhead instead, wondering things like: would his hair be soft without the product in it; did he seem the type who might be up for a casual fuck; exactly how much of a freak he would be in bed, and military types like that were always hiding something wonderfully nasty…

Paige poked him in the shoulder and then leaned in to say discreetly into his ear, “Cursory searching indicates they’re part of that Empire-knockoff junta out in the Unknown Regions. Not as much information to be had on the First Order as anyone would like, but those two stand out in a crowd. I think he might be this kid.” She passed him her datapad.

The image she had managed to find on the holonet was obviously at least a decade old and not entirely in focus. Ben could still see a small redheaded boy, no more than six or seven, standing beside an older woman and gazing up at her with total adoration on his little face. The child was dressed in some kind of cadet uniform, and the woman was…

“Is that Grand Admiral Sloane?” Ben whispered back.

“Yup,” Paige said. “This was taken in 5ABY when Sloane met with Chancellor Mothma to propose peace.” Paige paused to let him once again remember he had not only proposed marriage to the Chancellor but that his cursed mother had a holo recording of the whole incident, and then reached over him and brought up another picture on the datapad. “Same kid, several years later. Seen with this guy: Commandant Hux. Sloane and Hux were part of the group of Imperials who formed the First Order.”

Now the boy was more recognizable to Ben as the man in front of him. He had been a skinny, sad-faced child, and he’d grown into a nearly skeletal, hard-faced teenager. In the picture, Commandant Hux was giving a speech up at a podium while the boy stood at parade rest behind him along with several other teens, all of whom looked just as hard and stern. Ben felt a sympathetic pang of hunger for the kid in the photo. He’d had some unpleasant years in adolescence where his bones hurt from growing and he was hungry all the time, but he’d had family to listen to him complain, and he’d always had enough to eat. The same clearly couldn’t be said for the boy in the picture.

“Who is he?”

Paige took her datapad back. “Not a clue. Anything more recent is impossible to get off the holonet, the First Order are very secretive about their higher echelons. All I can tell you is that he’s probably an officer; the picture was from the First Order officer training academy that the Commandant created. Beyond that I’d need to get in touch with some of our contacts. At least he’s distinctive.”

Ben was starting to get some dirty looks for not paying the proper attention to the proceedings, so he just waved Paige back with a whispered, “Later,” and tried very hard to listen attentively to the glymphid. He failed.

In truth, Ben didn’t think any number of committees on crime would ever solve the problem. Lots of things lowered crime rates and most of them fell under the umbrella of improving people’s lives. Things like a proper social security net, access to food, housing, education, and opportunities. People with money sitting around complaining about how some species, or planets, or peoples were criminal by nature, and then trying to over-police them, was not how anything useful got accomplished.

He hadn’t wanted to join the committee because he thought what they were doing was useful, or because he wanted to be bribed, or even because he wanted the people of Naboo to look upon him favourably. He’d worked his ass off to get a seat because he finally had a lead on the creature chasing him and—as ludicrous as it seemed—Ben had suspected the New Republic senate committee on organized crime was going to help him chase that lead down. Now it was finally paying off.

For most of Ben’s life the big names in organized crime had mostly stayed the same, with some minor changes in fortune as they all struggled for power. It was rare for a small outfit to suddenly become a rival to gangs like the Guavians or the Epsis, but the Nikto cartel had managed it. In the last ten years they’d gone from minor-league protection racketeering, vice dens, and small-time spice running in a few major cities on Bastatha and now they ran most of the operations on the planet, were not just dealers but manufacturers and suppliers of spice, and there was some debate about how much of the sex trade was being done by sentients above the age of majority by their own free will, and how much of it was trafficking and slavery.

The sudden change in fortune had been from an influx in capital, that much Ben knew for sure. Rinnrivin Di, the head of the Nikto cartel, allied with the Amaxine warriors and quickly became a major player. For that reason, most of Ben’s fellow committee members thought that the Amaxine were behind the money and stopped paying attention. However, Ben had met a few Amaxine warriors before he’d joined the Senate, and they were all, every single one of them that he’d stumbled across, children. Literal children.

At the lofty age of twenty-one, Ben felt very comfortable referring to anyone younger than twenty as a child. Whether or not he was in a position to judge anyone for their youth was immaterial, Ben figured, because all but one of the Amaxine he’d encountered had been in their teens, and that one exception had been younger, not older. (The girl was eleven, armed to the teeth, and such a skillful pilot that even Han, who could never admit when someone was than him at flying, had been openly impressed.)

It didn’t matter if the Amaxine warriors were well armed, or good pilots, or little baby fanatics who wouldn’t even have been alive when the Empire fell. They were still children. The Amaxine might as well have had “a short life but a merry one” as their motto. Teenagers, in Ben’s experience, did not tend to be very proficient at long-term future planning, sensible investment, or running criminal empires.

While the inability of the New Republic to keep shipping lanes free from pirates, curtail the spice trade, or make a dent in the trafficking of sentient beings was hugely irritating to Ben, his interest wasn’t in Rinnrivin Di, or whatever child soldier was in charge of the Amaxine that week. His colleagues were right about one thing: the money had to come from somewhere. From what he’d managed to piece together, that money seemed to be coming from the First Order and was funneled to the cartel in order to generate massive amounts of capital, very quickly.

Ben’s interest in all of that was because of one reason alone: He couldn’t prove it yet, but out in the Unknown Regions, at the top of an organization built on the charred and broken bones of the Empire, he had reason to believe the Supreme Leader of the First Order was a powerful Force user. And that meant he could be the creature Ben was looking for.

It was the best lead Ben had had on the identity of the creature so far and he was determined to follow it through to the end. No other being he’d heard of came even close to being a candidate for the creature, except for this half-described Supreme Leader. Ben’s seat on the committee allowed him to track the back channels of the Order, their movements, their resources, their officers and footsoldiers and lackeys and go-betweens. And step by step he was getting closer to their Supreme Leader.

Now, finally, Ben had an officer of the First Order in reach, and the officer was an attractive ginger. Not once in Ben's life had his luck ever been so good. He leaned back a little in his seat, settling himself more comfortably under the weight of his clothes, and tried not to do something obvious like grinning.

When the officer looked up at the committee members, he and Ben made eye contact for the first time. Ben allowed himself the very hint of a smile. He let a hand drift towards his face, elbow propped carelessly on the bench before him, like he was about to touch his mouth, but didn’t quite do it. The officer looked away.

Ben didn’t try to make eye contact again, but he could see one of the screens from the camera that they used to transmit the proceedings onto the holonet, and the redhead kept looking at him when he thought Ben wouldn’t be paying attention. Despite the growing ache in his lower back and shoulders that promised he would pay dearly for sitting in committee all morning after such an uncomfortable night, Ben stayed cheerful. He had a clear shot. He wasn’t going to miss.

X X X

Ben made himself put the whole thing to one side so he could focus on the rest of his day. He’d developed a decent web of informants over the years, and he had several of them keeping tabs on the First Order officer. One of them would find out who he was and where he was staying, and then Ben could get the information he needed out of the man. And maybe a few other things if he played his cards right.

He managed to put it so thoroughly out of his mind, and he was tired enough after shedding the jūnihitoe and taking his dinnertime meds, that he was genuinely startled to see his mystery officer circulating among the guests at Jal Keed’s fundraising soiree that evening. Suddenly, Ben was very glad that he’d listened to Paige and stuck to the outfit that had an open back and a slit that hit scandalously high on his leg.

Ben hadn't quite needed his wheelchair, but he’d reached the point where his right hip was throbbing like he’d bruised it, and he wasn’t sure how much longer he was going to be able to stand before something gave out in protest. He had to lean on his cane to get over to where the officer was and it took him longer than he would have liked, but the officer was too busy scowling out at the developing dancefloor and trying to look like he was having fun to pay attention to Ben. It let Ben slide onto one of the barstools helpfully provided along with hourglass-shaped, two-person tables without the man seeing how awkwardly he moved. Once he was properly situated, Ben stuck out his cane and tapped the man’s leg, right where his tall boot met the black trousers tucked into them.

The man stepped back, hand going towards his hip. He wouldn’t have been able to get a blaster into Keed’s party, not with all the private security hanging around, but he was certainly used to carrying one.

Ben withdrew the cane. “I find myself in need of company,” he said. “Join me.” He crossed one leg over the other which stretched his hip wonderfully and also made the slit in his dress fall open.

The officer looked around as if Ben might be talking to someone else but they were in a corner without a good vantage point on the other dark places in the room. Not much opportunity to spy on the important things, but you’d only know that if you knew how that sort of party went and had spent a decent amount of time scoping out the best angles in Jal Keed's showcase of a city apartment.

When he didn’t see anyone else that Ben could be talking to, the officer offered Ben a small bow. “Senator Amidala,” he said. “My apologies, I didn’t see you there.”

“You’ll hurt my feelings,” Ben said dryly. As well as the dress, he’d also changed his hair and paint. He’d taken out the majority of the extensions and put his hair up in the shimada style with a six inch hairpin stuck in it that featured dangling plum blossoms in a nod to his earlier clothing, and also doubled nicely as a stiletto blade in a fight. He’d let Dosheny get a bit wild with his makeup and now there was a lot more of it around his eyes in the same delicate shade as the flowers on his hairpin. It was not a subtle look.

“And yet here you are,” the officer said. “In what I can only assume is an unfashionable corner, talking to an unimportant guest.”

“Sit,” Ben said, wheedling. “Just for a while. I don’t know you, and I know everyone.”

The man hesitated. He glanced back at the room at large, breathed in like he was going to sigh, but then mustered a polite smile. Whatever he was looking for clearly wasn't there. He didn’t sit, but he stood next to the table with Ben, close enough to be friendly but no closer. “Armitage Hux,” he said. “I’m visiting from Arkanis. I came all this way to talk to one of our delegates but she’s not here. I was told she would be. I think she’s avoiding me.” The last part was said with great irritation into the depths of his glass, but Ben caught it anyway.

Ben covered his surprise by sipping his own drink. He didn’t know about the Arkanis part, or if the First Order was truly meeting with people from there, but if Hux wasn’t lying about his name then it would explain why he’d been in a picture with Commandant Brendol Hux; he was related to the man. Probably his child. “Never had the pleasure,” Ben said.

“Don’t bother,” Hux said. “Unless you like rain. And bogs. There are rather a lot of fens and bogs.”

“You were at the organized crime sub-committee meeting today,” Ben said. “I’m sure I saw you. Your friend tripped the glymphid."

Hux smirked a bit. “He’d have done better to stay down. It was the stupidest proposal I’ve had the displeasure of hearing in weeks and I usually deal with middle management.”

This time Ben had to cover a genuine smile. He had terrible taste in men. He knew it. Everyone knew it. But damned if he didn't like them the most when they were a little bit mean and a lot bad for him. Hux ticked every box.

"Oh? What sort of work do you do?"

"I'm in construction," Hux lied easily. "I engineer massive-scale projects."

"I had no idea Arkanis had any industry in that area,” Ben said, because Arkanis did not.

Hux gave him a cool look that clearly conveyed he didn’t believe Ben was half as stupid as he looked. "I'm also here to talk about salvage with Jal Keed. My projects could use a great deal of the material he’s going to pull off Taris.”

That gave Ben pause. If Hux was actually there to talk to Keed, as well as whoever else it was he was looking for, then he probably did want salvage, which meant the First Order was trying to get their hands on Imperial wrecks with their ill-gotten gains. Which meant their organization was starting to get much bigger and they were starting to build things. Ben did not want to give them that opportunity. The bigger the Order got, the harder it would be to get to their Supreme Leader.

“What makes you think there aren’t contracts lined up?” Ben asked.

Hux weighed his options, drank again, and said, “His clean-up operation might seem altruistic but follow the work contracts to find out where the money is actually going. Keed is going to make billions of credits harvesting Imperial wrecks and he's going to do it with your charitable donations. He’ll entertain offers."

Ben nodded approvingly. "Keed is reliable that way. He'll make a massive profit but he will actually do the job."

"You're in on it," Hux said, flat.

"Of course I am," Ben said. "He'd sell that stuff to anyone with enough credits. I have… more scruples but better contacts.” He leaned a little closer to Hux, the jeweled blossoms hanging from his hairpin tinkling gently, and said in flirtatious tones, “Who do you think taught him how to run the grift in the first place?"

Hux whistled low under his breath. "Interesting, Senator. Why tell me?"

"Because you don't want to talk to Keed about obtaining some of the salvage. You want to talk to me. Lucky for you, I'm more than happy to entertain offers. What organization did you say you were with?”

That got Hux's full attention. The poor man seemed wildly undecided if he wanted to flirt with Ben, and if he should consider Ben a threat, or not. Ben had worked hard to have that effect on people. It was nice to see he was still at the top of his game.

Hux smiled thinly at him. “I didn’t,” he said. “Senator, this is all very irregular.”

“Welcome to the New Republic.” Ben opened his fan to hide a smile behind it.

“You claim to be running some sort of charity scam on your fellow senators, you say you have scruples but you’ll listen to my offer even though you don’t know who I work for… You can see why this seems extremely suspicious.” Hux wasn’t leaving though. Curiosity and a healthy bit of attraction would reel him in faster than threats.

Sometimes Ben felt a little bit like one of those strange deep-water fish with dozens of glowing filaments extending from their bodies like whiskers, luring their prey in with pretty lights towards their razor teeth. He didn’t have to feel bad about wanting to sleep with the same man he was planning on extracting information from, Ben told himself. Hux was First Order, he had no moral high-ground to stand on. Why shouldn’t Ben get what he wanted?

“I have a reputation,” Ben agreed. “Several, in fact.”

“You’re not known for being a serious man, nor are you known for your discretion.” Hux’s keen eyes landed on the hand-painted design on Ben’s fan. “You’re known for being provocative.”

Ben snapped it closed. He hadn’t actually thought anyone would know enough about traditional Naboo art to know that his fan was exactly as irreverent in its choice of subject as wearing a nearly-royal purple had been. “I’m impressed. You’ve done your research.”

“I make it my business to know things,” Hux said. “You were mentioned along the way.”

“'Mentioned along the way.'" Ben repeated. "You really are determined to hurt my feelings. What was said? I love to hear the gossip about myself.”

“You’re in a battle of wills with a child.” Hux held out a hand. “May I?”

Ben gave him the fan and realized the lure was going both ways; now he was curious about Hux.

Hux was gentle with the fan, careful not to snap the delicate spokes or tear the paper, and he didn’t put it down on the table in case there was condensation from their glasses. “The pikobi is on the Shibor House crest, the current ruling House,” Hux said. “The forked tail indicates the creature has lost its tail in battle, as it has regrown. A strong house, not afraid, a house that survives. It drinks from clear water with lush fields of millaflower behind it, saying that Naboo thrives under the rule of Queen Kirré Shibor. Very complimentary. Except…”

Hux glanced up at Ben, hesitating. Ben let his foot bump gently against Hux’s leg to encourage him.

“Except certain shades are restricted to the rightfully elected kings and queens of Naboo and I’m not sure if you’ve used it or not, my eye isn’t that good. That's how close you're cutting it. And if you look in the depths of the water, across from where the pikobi is drinking, there’s a silkhead fish lurking. They’re usually found much closer to the Abyss, if I remember correctly, but it could certainly consume a pikobi if it wanted to. The silkhead isn't found on any crest, but House Naberrie was famed for its weavers and the silkhead produces a slime that when harvested and properly treated cures into silk. Which is woven. What I can’t figure out, Senator Amidala of Naboo, is why you’re picking a fight with the Queen of Naboo.”

“I can’t figure out why you know so much about Naboo,” Ben said, a little impressed despite himself.

Hux’s eyes were very pale, almost clear, like two chips of ice. “I was researching the core planets. Their alliances, resources, and important customs. The people to know. I admit I fell down a bit of a research hole because I don't like it when there's unspoken conversations happening that I'm not aware of because of cultural differences. And my memory is impeccable.” He folded the fan and handed it back. “You didn’t answer my question.”

Ben tucked the fan into his sleeve. “I dislike her politics,” he said. “She’s hesitant when she should be bold, and she listens too much to advisors I don’t trust. If I tweak her nose over sumptuary laws, she forgets to listen to the words I’m saying and I get away with a lot more that way.”

“She’s right though,” Hux said, provoking. Ben thought it might be his way of flirting back. “You do dress above your station. You’re not the king.”

“To be honest, the original title in Old Naboo is much more similar to Regent, or Steward, to symbolize the monarch’s duty to the planet and the people, and the responsibility of the position. But language changed and now they say ‘king’ and ‘queen,’ which really don’t mean the same thing at all.”

Hux waved a dismissive hand. “Linguistic semantics aside, my point is that Naboo isn’t an hereditary monarchy,” he said. “Your grandmother might have been queen but that has no bearing on the status of her descendants.”

Ben did enjoy a good verbal sparring, since he didn’t get to do as much physical sparring as he wanted. “Is what I do not on the behalf of the planet and the people? Am I not their steward? I am the grandson of Padmé Naberrie, Queen and Senator of Naboo. I am the son of Leia Organa, Princess of Alderaan, Rebel General, Senator of Alderaan Space and the Diaspora. I am descended from royalty, and Jedi Knights, and Sith Lords —although, admittedly, those last two were the same man. I don't dress above my station, I simply dress to remind others of who and what I am, so they might not forget and I might not mistake their lack of understanding for deliberate disrespect. Queen Shibor forgets sometimes.”

“You’re also related to slum orphans and slaves if I recall correctly.”

“They’re who I get my keen sense of social justice from,” Ben said flippantly.

“At least some of those titles were earned by your predecessors.” Hux tapped a finger on his glass. “A lot of Force users in your family, apparently.”

“‘Apparently?’ You don’t believe in the Force?”

Hux straightened his already perfect posture. “On the contrary, I have been told by people I greatly respect that the stories of the Jedi and the Sith were no stories, that Darth Vader was a man with immense power, and that your uncle and mother both inherited that gift. What I doubt are the rumours that you have it as well. If you did, there would be public evidence of the fact. Something so significant is hard to keep secret unless you’re willing to kill those who find out. Therefore, you are either much more cunning than you seem and are playing a much longer game on a scope that I can barely comprehend, or you don’t have that power.” The corner of Hux’s mouth turned up and he gave the smallest of shrugs. “I hear these things sometimes skip a generation.”

Ben lost time to a hot flare of anger. It crept up on him sometimes, how angry he was at the situation he'd been forced into. It would build and build and he wouldn't notice until it appeared out of nothing, like the beam of a lightsaber igniting. He pushed it down and realized he’d zoned out completely. He’d run one finger down his own neck, bumping over the necklaces he was wearing, and then touched the neckline of the dress, managing to smudge the paint and get it on the jewelry and fabric. He _never_ made the mistake of touching his face. Ben focused again, pushing it all back down into the dark place he shoved all the emotions he wasn't prepared to deal with. “You’re not the first to suggest so,” he said as mildly as he could.

“Mmm,” Hux said. “Am I wrong? Tell me, Senator…” He leaned closer, just enough that he was looking up through his nearly translucent eyelashes, in a way that was obviously practiced but no less effective for it. “What am I thinking now?”

Ben closed his eyes, taking a moment to remember he was flirting, he was having fun, he was getting information, and then held two fingers near his temple as if reading his own thoughts. He affected a prophetic tone as he said, “You're thinking that rumours of my stupidity were greatly exaggerated, but no matter what people say, I probably don’t have magical powers.” Ben opened his eyes and put his hand on the table next to Hux’s. “You’re wondering if the gossip is also wrong about how stellar I am in bed, and if my dick is really that big.”

Hux glanced down. Ben didn’t think he was more than an inch taller than Hux, but his hands were much, much larger. As far as Ben knew there wasn’t actually any correlation between the size of one’s hand and the size of one’s penis, but it was something a lot of people believed, and it made his point.

Hux swallowed visibly and a pink flush appeared on his face. Ben had managed to fluster him. How delightful.

“Not what you were thinking?” Ben said. He winked at Hux. “It’s for the best. I’d make a lousy Jedi.”

“What’s the expression?” Hux said, recovering. Although he was still very pink. “You were close enough for government work.”

Ben opened his mouth to say something undoubtedly brilliant when the vertigo hit. He had to grab onto the table to keep from sliding off his stool, but the table wasn’t attached to the ground and it tipped. Hux quickly put one hand on the tabletop to hold it down, and another on Ben’s back to steady him. His hand was warm, even through his gloves. Ben panted for air, swallowed down a wave of nausea, and relaxed his death grip on the metal tabletop.

“Senator?” Hux said, concerned. He peered into Ben’s face and then jerked back, frowning. “Are you high?!” he demanded.

The lighting in the room was hurting Ben’s eyes all of a sudden, so he figured his pupils had blown wide, and he probably did look intoxicated. “As if you have any room to cast aspersions,” Ben said, still breathing carefully. His pulse shocked through him in a rapid series of thuds and it never got better. No matter how many times it happened it still felt terrible. “I won’t be judged by you, not when the First Order are running spice.”

It wasn’t how he wanted things to go, and he hadn’t really meant to say it. Ben tended to lose his grip on his temper when he wasn’t feeling well and it didn’t matter that he almost always immediately regretted it. He’d learned to either live with whatever ire he triggered and move on from there, or push all of it down with the rest of his troubles and pretend nothing had happened.

Hux’s mouth opened and closed a few times in outrage. “I am not running spice!” he said, insulted, and then belatedly added, “And I’m not with the First Order.” He offered Ben the tiniest of bows. "Senator, it's been interesting, but I don't think you are the person I need to speak to after all." He didn't wait for Ben to reply before storming off.

Ben stayed where he was, not confident he could stand without assistance. “Damn it,” he muttered to himself and pulled his comm out with his shaking hands, so he could contact Paige and get her to send that assistance so he could go home. And he hadn’t even got to properly show off his outfit. What a disappointing end to a promising night. The one bright spot was that Hux was interested. Even if he’d been put off, Ben thought he might still be able to reel him in, if he was clever about it. Hux might not think good things about him, but Ben would bet he was at least thinking of him. And that was enough to be getting on with for the night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The mosaic in Ben’s room is modelled after the Shāh Chérāgh mosque and mausoleum, in Iran. I haven’t been, myself, but I’d love to because the photos are beautiful and I bet it’s even more amazing in person.
> 
> Kef is Kefir. A fermented milk beverage which is basically drinkable yoghurt. Some people swear by the stuff to help bad stomachs, probably because it’s probiotic.
> 
> Ben’s senate gown was originally based on the grey Kimono-esque gown from the prequel series, but I fell down an historical clothing wormhole so now it’s a jūnihitoe. Jūnihitoe (as far as my English-language research goes) is Japanese court clothing from the Heian period. There were A Lot of sumptuary laws in history, and jūnihitoe layers were dictated by station, season of the year, whatever the Empress said and a whole lot of other things. Ben’s colour choices are all taken from the spring plum scheme, which was in itself a bit controversial because there were differences of opinion on what colours were best. Anyway, the prequel series liked to use a lot of traditional garments from eastern cultures without acknowledgement, so I wanted to be sure to say: it’s a Japanese court dress and I used the real names of the various layers. They’re beautiful, and I do suggest giving it a google if you’re interested.
> 
> A short life but a merry one is a paraphrased quote from the famous pirate Bartholomew Roberts (Black Bart) who was pressed into piracy and decided ‘fuck it I go here now.’ He supposedly said:
> 
> “In an honest service there is thin commons, low wages, and hard labour. In [piracy], plenty and satiety, pleasure and ease, liberty and power; and who would not balance creditor on this side, when all the hazard that is run for it, at worst is only a sour look or two at choking? No, a merry life and a short one shall be my motto.” — A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the most notorious Pyrates (1724), p.213–214
> 
> Ben's fancy hair at the party is also a traditional Japanese look, and was a hairstyle worn initially by courtesans, then geisha. When you know what Senator Amidala is about, he ain't subtle.
> 
> Ben is thinking of anglerfish, but in case you’re not caught up with your deep water fish, there’s newish footage of a female/male pair and she has the most amazing tendrils extending from all over her body, not just one lure at the front. [Cast your eyes upon her radiance!](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anDIlMVgNwk)
> 
> The pikobi is a fast-moving, flightless reptavian native to Naboo.
> 
> Millaflower are a plant that grows on Naboo and they were a lucrative and exotic export.
> 
> The silkhead fish is a creature I made up and is a horrible combination of the hagfish and the silkworm because I’m the worst. The hagfish is a sea creature (classification is hotly debated) that produces a milky and fibrous slime as a defense mechanism. The microfibrous slime can expand into 20 litres (or ¼ US gallons) when combined with water. [The Vancouver aquarium has a good video here.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmaal7Hf0WA)
> 
> The Naberrie House was known for its weaving but everything about the house crests, the animals and the symbolism, etc. was all made up.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning/spoilers about the sex scene in the end notes.
> 
> Again, all art by the amazing [Lilander](https://twitter.com/lilandersw)
> 
> This might be the filthiest smut I have ever written.

Ben met Jal Keed in a spaceport bar when he was eighteen and Keed was twenty. They were both leaving Wuundut on short notice, and neither one of them was happy about it.

Ben had been in the middle of a huge argument with Leia, and she'd booked a ship to come get him. He wasn’t running away, he wasn’t, he had medical appointments he had to be on other planets for. He was going to make appointments. Keed, on the other hand, had his visa revoked because the local religious authorities declared him too handsome and said he had to leave because the women of Wuundut might fall in love with him. Ben had thought it was a joke. It was not a joke: Jal Keed was so handsome he’d been deemed a threat to virtue on a planetary scale.

Keed was born on Taris, high above the smog into a well-to-do family where he was loved by all three parents and got along well with his four sisters. And he was so pfassking handsome it was almost unbelievable. He was so handsome that he’d never really had to try at anything. People liked him immediately, they wanted him to like them too. It could have been very easy to hate him, if you realized he’d been born under a lucky star and resented it, but he was nice. He was incredibly nice in a very genuine way. Ben hadn't been immune to the handsomeness or the niceness, and Keed had liked Ben enough to drink with him in the Wuundut spaceport bar. And on the shuttle. And on the ship.

Somehow getting absolutely bladdered together and accidentally catching a ship to Narrin instead of Narrinna (the latter of which was a nearby system, the former was a planet on the other side of the galaxy and not remotely the same thing at all) without luggage, credits, or a clue, had turned into a lasting friendship.

Everyone had their vices, and Keed’s were expensive jewels, cheap men, and equally cheap women. He had good credit, gambled casually within his means, and he wasn’t cruel to the people he fucked nor did he delude himself that he was in love. Pedestrian, and easy enough to handle. (Ben made him get a bachelor pad, told him to never bring anyone to his actual home, and never to say anything to any one of them about anything ever. Luckily, Keed was smart enough to know when to keep his mouth shut and he’d appreciated the good advice.) Ben’s vices at the time had been anything that would muffle the pain and help him forget that he was desperately unhappy. So, a lot of drinking, a lot of misuse of prescription medication, and a fair amount of spice.

They’d both been galivanting around Zeltros together and were neck deep in a hot spring, naked as the day they were born, and drunker than judges when Keed stopped talking about tits and said, “There’s a lot of fuckin’... ships. Lotta fuckin’ old ships on Taris. Wrecks. In the swamps. And they’re just sitting there, and it’s such a waste. You’d need so much stuff though, Benya. Cranes. You’d need a lot of cranes to pull up stuff. And people. You’d have to hire people too, and that’s just for one ship! Just to get one of them out. Not even two, only one. It’s too much! But it’s too much so the ships just sit there, and the planet stays trashed, and no one gets jobs, and it’s stupid, are you listening to me, it’s so pfassking stupid!”

Ben had just snorted a combination of his pain medication and something that had been designed as an animal tranquilizer but worked pretty good on humans recreationally, and was barely paying attention. Slowly, Keed’s words began to filter through the fog.

“What?” Ben said. His thoughts and his body were very far away. The rocks underneath him felt soft and very far away. Nothing hurt. He kind of wanted his dick sucked.

Before Keed could answer, Ben’s brain caught up with his ears.

“That’s a combination ‘My Brothers and Sisters,’ and ‘Twenty Great Guys,’” Ben said, wiggling his toes just to feel the way the water moved over them. “On a bigger scale, but still just a con and a racket rolled into one.”

Keed scooted closer until his handsome face was very close to Ben’s own significantly less handsome one. “Benya, my love, light of my life, what the fuck are you talking about?” he said.

“You want to blow me?” Ben asked hopefully.

“Too much wine, I’ll hurl,” Keed said. “What’s ‘My Brothers?’”

Ben let his head tip back and stared up into the canopy of trees overhead. It had been a beautiful night with clear skies, the weather just cool enough to make the hot spring even better. He could see the stars and the pale swirl of the galaxy through the gaps in the leaves. All around him was the jungle, all the rich smells, the sounds of life; there was so much energy. And he couldn’t feel it. He couldn’t feel any of it, because of what he’d done. What he’d chosen to do. What he’d had to do. And for one crystalline, shining moment, Ben got angry.

That was the moment Ben realized he’d stopped trying to fight back. He’d given up and resigned himself to the pain, and the nightmares, and living under the threat that one day the creature might find him. He was nineteen years old and was pretty much just waiting for something to finish him off. He’d been on one bender or another since he’d dragged himself back home nearly seven months after he’d run away from Luke’s school.

Leia hadn’t cried, when she saw what he’d done, but she’d been very sad, and very careful with him. He thought she was a bit unnerved by the whole thing. Han had been angry. Mostly he’d been angry at Leia, Luke, and Maz, who had the Force, and should have known something was wrong. But he’d been mad at Ben too, for not asking for help. And he’d been mad at himself. Then, late one night, Ben snuck out of bed to raid the liquor closet and spotted Han, who’d got there first and was sitting on the floor and sobbing in big ugly gulps that came tearing out of him. Han, who never let anything get him down.

Ben had finally understood that Han was angry because he was scared. It shook the foundations of his world a little bit, but he felt like he’d _got_ something about Han he never had before. He’d wanted to say something, the next morning but Han sauntered into his bedroom, threw an empty duffle at his head and said, “Pack up, kid. I’ve got work, and you’re not in school, and you don’t have a job, so grab your shit. You’re gonna fly with Chewie ‘n me for a while.”

It had been enough, for a while. But Ben’s health deteriorated and he became a liability on the job. He’d made some friends by then, and some contacts, and he’d ditched Han and bounced around getting progressively less sober as the months went by. Ben hadn’t visited his dad in nearly a year, because he’d reached the point where he wasn’t ever sober for longer than half a day at a stretch, and didn’t want Han to see him like that.

Somewhere along the way, Ben had given up and there he was, naked and stupidly drunk in a hot spring with the most handsome man in the galaxy. Which...didn’t make it sound like giving up had been a mistake, but it was, and Ben was pissed off. He wasn’t going to just lie down and let the universe fuck him. He was Ben Organa-Solo and not one member of his family —by blood or by choice— had ever backed down on anything in their lives.

“You okay there?” Keed asked, pawing at him in what was presumably supposed to be a helpful gesture.

“I’m good,” Ben said. “I’m…”

Just because someone couldn’t feel the Force, didn’t mean it wasn’t there. He’d seen his dad pull off impossible things and when he’d asked his mum, Leia had said, with some loving frustration, “Your father will go to his grave saying he can’t use the Force. Maybe he can’t. But it damn well moves through him all the same.”

Ben couldn’t do shit anymore. But maybe the Force could still move through him because he had an idea so brilliant and so stupid he figured it just might work.

The creature wanted galactic domination. He wanted Ben, sure, but you couldn’t take over the galaxy with two guys, Force or no Force. He’d need an army. To build that you needed credits. You needed supply chains, and food, and material for weapons, and AT-ATs, and droids, and ships, and star destroyers, and basically everything. Getting all that would be difficult, time consuming, and expensive. But on Taris there were more Imperial wrecks than you could shake a stick at. Miles and miles of material worth billions of credits. And if he was smart, Ben could control who had access to it. He could use that as a lure to draw out the army the creature had to be amassing. And when he’d found the army, he could find the creature.

“That’s a really disturbing smile, Benya,” Keed said.

“They’re cons.” Ben sat up, pushing Keed back so they didn’t crack their heads together. “You scam a religious organization by asking for charitable donations —usually for a legitimate cause, like disaster relief or feeding orphans— but you pocket the cash.”

“Why’s it called Brothers?”

“‘My brothers and sisters we must help these poor souls etc. etc.’” Ben said in a decent impression of an Alder-Espirion priest exhorting his followers. He continued normally, “Twenty Great Guys is an organized crime racket. Mostly involving construction contracts or the like. You hire twenty great guys to do the job, except there’s really only ten guys, so you’re pocketing the salary of those ten imaginary workers. And if you use union labour then maybe the ten real guys aren’t so great, so the job takes longer than projected. But they’re union, so they get paid, and you’ve got control of the union boss, so you get a cut of that too.”

Keed looked very impressed by Ben’s knowledge of basic scams. “That’s wild,” he said. “What’s that got to do with—” he did something that was half a hiccup and half a burp. “—Taris?”

Ben dunked himself under the water to try and help clear his head. It did nothing at all to help. “If you want to clean up Taris, you need to run a con. Two, cons. Four at most.”

Keed’s frown was just as attractive as all his other expressions. “Why not… not steal the money? I could just start a charity to clean Taris and then, holy shit, I will never hire anyone who’s got twenty great guys.”

“No, I mean you should run the job,” Ben said. “We should run it. Pay attention, I’m a genius, I’m giving you wisdom here. We both know a lot of rich idiots. You set up the charity and you’ll get funded before you even know it. Then we hire twenty great guys and then we control where all that salvage goes. There’s valuable material, and there’s a shitload of weapons, too. A lot of people are going to want to make a deal and we’ll be the ones who say yes or no.”

Keed was nodding, but he clearly wasn’t following a word of what Ben had said. “Okay but why not just do the job without running the scam?” he said again.

“Because otherwise you’ll lose money, and nothing will get done,” Ben said impatiently. “You’re either gonna make it or lose it and you might as well make it. If you’ve got money, it means you’ve got more power and more position. Which makes repeating the scam much easier the second time.”

Ben was very impressed with himself and his new plan. He wasn’t going to bend over for destiny, or the dark side, and he wasn’t going to wind up dead in a hotel room on some pleasure planet at twenty-seven. He had a plan. Not one that was well thought out, or comprehensible to anyone else, but it was a start,

Keed crawled out of the hot spring over to a pile of mostly empty wine bottles and foraged around until he found one that they hadn’t opened yet. He pulled the stopper out with his teeth and spat it somewhere into the bushes. “Don’t ever be evil, Benya,” he said, and then stumbled trying to get back into the spring.

Ben scrambled to save the wine while Keed slipped into the water in a barely controlled fall, and then neither of them could remember what Keed had been saying. They were halfway through the bottle when Keed remembered again. “You gotta stay good, because you know too much bad stuff about doing good things.”

“What?” Ben said.

“We’re gonna clean up Taris!’ Keed said with great enthusiasm, and then barfed into the hot spring.

Together, Ben and Keed had come up with a lot of stupid ideas when they were drunk and naked, but the next day, when Ben had recovered from his hangover, he remembered the entire scheme and thought: Huh, that might actually work.

So Ben drafted up the entire process of extracting a star destroyer out of a swamp, breaking it down into parts, and selling those parts on. He included charity funding projections, the construction and demolition costs of pulling a star destroyer out of a swamp, who to contract to, and who might want to buy. Keed took one look at all his work and pushed the flimsi away.

“Just tell me one thing,” Keed had said. “Is it going to get that crap off my planet, put credits into the pockets of hardworking people, and not involve selling dangerous shit to bad people?”

“Two out of three?” Ben said and then added hurriedly, “But only because I’m baiting a trap. And it will go to the least bad people we can get away with. Just enough to look like we’re willing to bargain. Jal, it’s life or death. I need your help. And so does Taris! We’ll clean it up, I swear, I just need to cut a few deals the first year or two.”

After Ben explained the reasoning behind wanting to get involved, Keed said, with some reluctance, “I’m trusting you,” and started the charity.

Sure enough, rich, important people started donating and they were off. Then their charity was hiring workers, and making contracts, and pulling Imperial wrecks out of swamps and selling the salvage on for a massive profit. Ben hid the profit with clever book-keeping and shell companies and now he owed Maz one hell of a favour, but he did it in such a way that a career criminal, or someone with enough motivation and shady intentions, could see what was really going on. It said, to that sort of person: we are open for business.

Ben kept his name out of it. As far as anyone knew, he was just a frequent donor to his friend’s charity, but he was all in with Keed. He couldn’t have run it on his own; not with his reputation and the reputations of certain other family members. But Keed was very handsome and he didn’t have a mean bone in his body, and he really did want to clean up Taris. In fact, Keed wound up starting multiple charities (none of which were scams) to help make his planet a better place because Jal Keed was a good man. A bit of a rich twit, maybe, but a good person at heart. Everyone knew it. And that’s why, with Keed as the face of the operation, Ben got away with setting his trap.

X X X

The morning after Keed’s party, Ben couldn’t get out of bed on his own. He couldn’t move without getting palpitations and body shocks, and he felt like boiled hell. Ben had learned from bitter experience that if he kept pushing himself he’d only add to the number of bad pain days, so he swallowed his pride and called his hired caregiver to come and help.

He didn’t have a lot of pride left when it came to his body’s capabilities. It failed him more and more each year, and he’d resigned himself to new limitations on what he could do. That said, he was twenty years old and he couldn’t get out of bed, and everything hurt, and even though he’d decided not to ever quit fighting, everything kept getting worse, and he felt very, very sorry for himself. It took Ark ol Riis ten minutes to show up after he’d commed. Ben spent most of those ten minutes wishing for death in an unserious sort of way, and regretting every moment he’d wasted as a teenager, when he could have been doing all the things he couldn’t do anymore.

Riis let herself in and came to see what sort of state he was in. He must have been looking especially bad because she didn’t try and practice her Basic with him, or tell him he was an idiot for not calling her sooner. She just got his stash of “break transparisteel in case of emergency” medications for the pain and gave him two to put under his tongue.

Riis sat next to him on the bed and gently took all his rings off, chafing his hands to warm them up and get the blood flowing. Then she took out his earrings, and unsnarled his hair so she could pick out the pins that he’d missed when he’d taken his hair down. The last of the extensions were sewn in, but Riis had dealt with them before, so it wasn’t too complicated for her to find tiny scissors and cut them out.

When Ben was at his sickest, he couldn’t tolerate the vibrations from a sonic, so Riis drew him a hot bath. He also had trouble tolerating his emergency medication and while Riis was in the refresher, Ben’s stomach started churning, and then he was heaving. Each time his stomach clenched and he hunched over, his body was lit up with zaps and pulses, and his brain kept sparking, and he gagged, and coughed, and only got himself back under control when Riis rubbed his back for him. It was why he took those pills sublingually: he couldn’t throw them up if they weren’t in his stomach.

Riis stripped him out of his underwear, lifted him out of the bed, carried him to the tub, and set him carefully into the water. It was immensely helpful having a phydolon as a caregiver. Her sheer size made it much easier for her to lift him than it would be for a human, and she thought humans were a bit weird, and definitely not sexually appealing, so it was less awkward when she saw him naked. Riis was the only phydolon he’d ever met whose symbiote preferred being away from the rhizome. Which was why Riis was the only phydolon Ben had ever met. He didn’t ask about her circumstances, and in return she didn’t ask about his, because she was mildly Force-sensitive herself and must have put one or two things together on her own.

Ben sat in the tub and cried because his skin itched and burned, and his bones ached, and he’d thrown up in his bed like a sick pet. He was humiliated, and he hurt, and he couldn’t stop crying which was also extremely humiliating. She let him soak for a little bit while she changed the sheets, maybe giving him space to collect his dignity, and by the time she came back he was almost okay.

Riis washed his hair for him, untangling it from around his necklace, and combing conditioner through it until it was free of knots and snarls. Her orucyte rustled soothingly as she worked. Gradually Ben’s tears dried up and his muscles started to unlock as he relaxed. It helped ease the body shocks, and the tension headache that had started growing, too.

Riis stroked his wet hair back from his forehead. “Feel better not-now,” she said. Basic was difficult for her, as it was so different from her native means of communication, and she struggled with words for moments in time. “Hm. Better _soon_ ,” she said, pleased with herself and pushed a washcloth into his hands. “Will wash face Ben.”

Ben sniffled pitifully. “Sure, Riis,” he said but he took the washcloth, wet it, and wiped his face clean of tears. It did make him feel a bit better.

“No senate now,” she said. “Watch holo Ark ol Riis and Ben. Will sleep Ben.”

“No senate,” Ben agreed. “But I have to go see Jal Keed. Then holos with Riis.”

She clicked at him, unsure, but he was feeling well enough to sit, so she helped him into the softest, least irritating shirt and drawstring trousers that he owned, and then into his wheelchair. She got him thick, warm compression socks, and the weighted cloth for the back of his neck that turned hot and cold by turns, and then she dug her strong bony fingers into the soft pressure points on his hands that at least prevented his headache from getting any worse. Ben proposed marriage to her about once a month because of her ability to stop a migraine in its tracks. He suspected some of it was Force manipulation, and not pressure points, but he could not have cared less what it was that helped, only that it helped.

By the time he was dressed, and had managed to keep a little dry toast down, the pain medication had started to kick in. Ben called his driver, hoped he wouldn’t be too stoned to have a conversation, and went back to Keed’s apartment.

Keed’s apartment wasn’t any homier in the daylight. It also hadn’t been designed to accommodate a wheelchair, but Ben had been there when Keed was having a tour and he chewed out the real estate agent for a solid ten minutes about accessibility. The agent had obviously got the impression that he and Keed were both going to live there, because the agent installed grab bars and ramps, and even had one section of the kitchen island lowered. It wouldn’t have been nearly enough if Ben had actually been planning to live there, but it did make it easier for him to get around and enabled him to hunt down Keed, who was still in bed.

“You missed my party,” Keed said, muffled.

“Bad night,” Ben said. “Get off your ass and help me.”

Keed’s head appeared from under the mountains of blankets. “Amidala it’s too early for you to be so…” He looked at Ben and his casual attire, and flapped a hand at him. “Okay. I can deal with my friend. I’m too fucked up for the senator. Gods, I might still be drunk.”

He extracted himself from the sheets and helped heave Ben out of his chair and up onto the mattress, although Ben was pretty sure the effort didn’t feel great for either of them between his body shocks and the undoubtedly brutal hangover Keed had. Keed still fluffed the pillows and made a comfy little nest for Ben before curling up next to him. He heaped the blankets over them both, put his head down on Ben’s shoulder and yawned massively. He stank of booze-sweats.

Ben kept his voice low in deference to his own potential migraine and Keed’s sore head. “We did it. This time next year and we won’t have to deal with anyone we don’t like. Hell, we can turn the Tarin salvage into modern art if we feel like it. We can eject it all into the nearest sun.”

“You found your guy?” Keed said.

“I found _a_ guy. I told you, sooner or later someone from the First Order would come looking to buy. Did anyone try and talk to you?”

Keed cracked open an eye. “There was someone last night. He might have said who he worked for but I don’t know. I was drunk. I told him to come back later when I wasn’t drunk. We have a meeting… Hax? Hux? Something like that.”

“Hux. Yeah, him.”

Keed groaned. “Benya,” he said in a drawn-out whine.

“Yes, I think he could have the information I want. Yes, I’m going to have sex with him. No, it’s not a good idea.” Ben wiggled a bit, getting comfortable. “Take the meeting, but stall for time, don’t sell him anything.”

“You’re going to screw the agent of your enemy...because?”

Ben closed his eyes and let the hangover-hot warmth of Keed’s skin act like a heating pad for his sore bones. “Because he’s a horrible, sarcastic, uptight bastard of a man, and you know how much I like that. And I don’t care about hurting his feelings.”

“Nnngh,” Keed said. Then, “We need to talk about the salvage. There’s a lot more offers coming in from I don’t know who. It’s not good. We’ve put ourselves in the middle of some really bad people and your mother thinks there’ll be war.”

“She’s right,” Ben said. “If the First Order doesn’t start one with the New Republic, I’ll fucking start one with the First Order.”

Keed’s moan of protest was even more feeble than before. “It’s time to be serious. You can’t even walk. You can’t fight anyone.”

There were not a lot of people who knew that Ben was actively looking for the creature. Mostly everyone thought he was looking for solutions to his pain, and better ways to prevent the creature from getting to him. Keed was one of the only ones who did know, and he’d had plenty to say about Ben’s plans, but not that. He’d never said that.

“You don’t think I can do it,” Ben said.

“I’m hungover,” Keed pleaded, but lifted his head so he could look at Ben properly. Even blotchy and stubbled, with his hair in a mess, and sleep crusted in the corner of his eyes, he was still annoyingly good looking. “Ben,” he said seriously, “I know what’s at stake. But you’re acting like you can just walk up to a Sith lord and punch him in the face, and you can’t. You can’t walk without help four days out of seven, and you’d lose a fight against a regular guy. He’s not a regular guy! He’s got the Force, and you don’t. You don’t have a lightsaber, and you can’t move shit with your brain, or any of that stuff. And you can’t even walk, Ben.”

It hurt more than Ben wanted to admit.

“I’m sorry,” Keed said.

“No, you’re right.” Ben swallowed and had to blink rapidly to stop from tearing up for the second time that day. “But. I have a plan, Jal. Once I know where he is, and how to get to him, I’ll have a timeline. I’ll know how long it will take. I can learn.”

“Ben.”

“I have a plan,” Ben insisted. “And I don’t care. If I have to show up in my chair, or crawl there on my hands and knees, I’ll do it. I’ll get a hundred of our wrecks and send them all smashing down into whatever planet he’s on. I don’t have to fight him with a sword, but I will. I’ll figure out some way to do it. I’ve had five years learning to adapt or die. He’s never had to figure out shit.”

Keed kissed his face, next to his eye and put his arms around him. “Benya, I’m sorry.”

Ben let himself be held for a little while. When he stopped feeling like he was going to cry, and suspected Keed might be close to passing out again he said, as a peace offering, “Come home with me. Riis and I are watching holos and I’m gonna take some more pain meds and get a bit high, so I’ll probably say some entertaining shit. I can probably sneak you one of my pills when Riis isn’t looking if you want.”

“Oh, yes, please,” Keed said. “My hangover is killing me.”

X X X

It took three days before Ben’s flare-up abated, and he spent most of it in bed, working from home, calling in to his meetings via holo. He let Queen Kirré yell at him for a bit about his sartorial choices, but his health problems made her uncomfortable and she let the whole thing go almost immediately, rather than deal with him while he was sick. Keed swung by at one point to let him know he’d taken a meeting with Hux, and had done what they’d agreed: he didn’t say no, but he didn’t agree to anything either, ensuring Hux would stick around long enough for Ben to recover and get involved again even if he finished his business with Rinnrivin Di.

Ben’s sources had indicated that Hux was seen at one of Di’s local cantinas, meeting with the Nikto crime boss. The day he could use his cane instead of his chair, Ben was ready, and almost right away he heard Hux had another meeting with Di. Ben dug out clothes that looked a lot like what he used to wear when he could still go on runs with Han. It wasn’t much, just sturdy boots, trousers, a shirt that he’d resewn buttons on himself with a neckline high enough to hide his necklace, and a vest that had more pockets than you could see just by looking. He chose a plain metal cane that was too heavy for everyday use, but worked great in a bar fight. Then he strapped a blaster to his hip and headed to a part of town that most senators wouldn’t dare step foot in.

Rinnrivin Di owned a number of dodgy cantinas and gambling houses in the district, although he spent most of his time at his base of operations on Bastatha, and Ben had been to that one before. It wasn’t the worst cantina Ben had ever drank in. Not by a long shot. The floors were only a little bit sticky, the drinks were cheap but not likely to cause blindness, and you could eat the food as long as you steered clear of anything with the word ‘creamed’ in it. Ben had been there several times.

As far as Rinnrivin Di and everyone else who hung out at the cantina was aware, he wasn’t Senator Amidala, or even Ben Solo. He was Kylo Ren: a smuggler, retrobate, and gambler whose morals were pretty flexible if he got into debt and needed to do a job to pay it off. Di and his gang were almost exclusively Kajain'sa'Nikto and Ben didn’t think they could tell most humans apart without some effort so he wasn’t worried about his cover being blown any time soon. And most of the patrons weren’t sober enough to question his story. No one expected to see Senator Amidala, so no one did. Ben came by often enough that no one looked at him like he was a stranger, but not so often that they thought they really knew him.

In the past two years Ben had managed to eavesdrop on enough conversations to form a pretty good picture of how Di’s operations were running. He knew some of the people involved, and eventually he’d got a decent handle on how the operation fit in with the First Order. Plus, he was on the senate committee on organized crime. Some of the unrelated intel he picked up was extremely helpful for his day job.

Ben got to the cantina early enough that it wasn’t crowded or too noisy, and he was able to grab a stool at the bar and position himself so when he looked in the mirror along the wall, he had a clear view of the door to the back rooms. Di hadn’t gotten as far as he had by making stupid mistakes, and he wasn’t going to take a meeting with a First Order agent out where everyone could see. Eventually Hux would come out of that door. Ben settled in, ordered himself a drink, and waited.

It didn’t take very long before Hux emerged, Di right behind him. Ben watched in the mirror as they shook hands and said something to each other. Di looked happy. He kept the handshake going for way too long before he finally released Hux. They said something else and Di disappeared into the back again. Hux surreptitiously wiped his palm on his trousers, not quite able to conceal his expression of vague disgust. He tugged the lapels of his coat so it flared for a second and fell more closed in the front. It allowed Ben to glimpse what was probably a SE-44C blaster on his hip, judging by the size, and gave Ben his first real proof that Hux was also concealing how slim he was.

Ben couldn’t see any other weapons from where he was sitting, but he was willing to bet Hux had some derringer-style blaster holstered in the small of his back, or the top of his boot. Probably something else too, like a razor wire in his belt, or a blade somewhere. He seemed the type.

As he turned to face the room at large, Hux caught sight of Ben. Or, rather, his back. Or... actually, Hux wasn’t looking at Ben in a way that suggested he recognized him at all. Because Hux was definitely just staring at his ass.

Ben watched with amusement as Hux’s gaze wandered down his legs (Ben had to admit they did look fucking _excellent_ in those trousers), back up, and then over his shoulder to see Ben’s face in the mirror.

It only took him a second.

He went from ‘enjoying the view’ to ‘enraged, possibly murderously so.’

Ben tipped his glass at Hux’s reflection in a toast and then waited for him to storm over so he could say, “Following me, huh? That seems a bit forward of you.”

Hux made a face like he was grinding his teeth. “I am not following you,” he hissed. “Why in the stars should I have suspected that you would be here? What are you doing here!”

“Love the band,” Ben said, deadpan. If there was one thing the cantina did not feature, it was a band. In fact, there was a sign tacked to the mirror right in front of them both clearly stating in Basic that anyone attempting to start a rousing chorus of any kind would be given a thumping and thrown out into the gutter.

Hux took in a deep breath through his nose, lips pressed in a thin line. “Are you following me?” he said from between his teeth.

“Nope,” Ben said, popping the word in a way he’d been told was extremely annoying. “I love drinking at the…”

“You don’t know the name of this establishment, do you?” Hux accused.

Ben grinned at Hux which made the other man startle. Ben rarely showed his teeth; it was considered impolite in many cultures. Also, the white paint made them look a little yellow. “Pretty sure it doesn’t have one, pal. It’s just called forty-six, thirty-six, zero-one, after the nearest lightpost. Like other ‘establishments’ in this area. It’s a common way to mark locations when city planning goes to shit. Which you would know, if you actually ever spent time out of First Order space. Sometimes it takes a second to remember that kind of thing. Have a seat, Captain.”

“I’m not a captain,” Hux said. “I’m not—”

“Don’t insult my intelligence,” Ben said, not as friendly, voice dropping flat. “Sit. Have a drink with me.”

Ben took care of his body when he had the energy and his pain wasn’t too bad, and once every so often he’d let Rey kick the shit out of him for a while and call it ‘improving his lightsaber technique.’ It was fun, and it kept him in shape, but lightsabers really sucked as a weapon without the Force, which was why he’d acquired several blasters instead. However, as strong as he was, Ben’s current cocktail of medication made him slow and unsteady, and if Hux ran for it, there was no way Ben could catch him. You wouldn’t know it from looking at him though. Ben took a sip of his drink, which made his bicep flex. Hux sat.

“I promise I only bite if you’re into it,” Ben said, nice as you could please again.

“How much of your whole ‘wounded tooka’ thing is a charade?” Hux said bitterly, while Ben signaled to the candovantan behind the bar to bring Hux a round.

“Not a bean.” Ben turned in his seat and stretched one long leg out behind Hux’s stool. That gave Hux only one way out and put him well within grabbing distance. “This was the show.” Ben looked pointedly under the bar and Hux followed his line of sight until he noticed the cane.

“Pfassk it, you are a—”

“Be nice,” Ben warned. “Some things other people don’t get to call me.”

Hux swallowed, his throat bobbing against the tight starched lines of his collar. “Are you saying I could have just _walked briskly_ to get out of this?”

“Yeah, ‘fraid so.” Ben put a friendly hand in the small of Hux’s back. Not where he kept his second blaster, as it turned out. “Don’t worry, I’m not here for trouble. Relax. Slouch a little. The only sentients here with posture that good are the droids, and a pleasure droid with synth-skin that looked like that would a) not be in a bar like this and b) would probably be a lot more sweet to me.”

Hux glared at him, but did actually put his elbows on the bar and lean towards his drink like every other being propping up the sticky surface. “Pleasure droid,” he muttered under his breath. “What do you want, Se—” This time Hux interrupted his own thought. He stopped and reconsidered. “What do you want, Ben?”

Ben left his hand where it was and let his thumb rub in a semicircle. “Didn’t mean to cut our last chat so short. I’m sure you’ve asked around and heard that I’m not a spice addict. I’m not a liability in a business arrangement. Just… prone to fits of the vapours.”

Hux took a sip of the drink in front of him and only made a slight grimace. Good for him, Ben thought, it wasn’t a smooth pour. “Vapours,” Hux said. “Is that what you call whatever it is? Everyone had a lot to say, but no one knew exactly what it is you have.”

“I have a soft spot for men in uniform. I think it’s the boots.”

That finally got a bit of a smile out of Hux. “Major,” he said. “Major Armitage Hux of the First Order. My identity isn’t a secret.”

“It’s not _not_ a secret,” Ben countered. “Since you were so cagey about it before.”

“I suppose it’s not too disloyal for me to fill you in on the news that some people don’t like us,” Hux said wide-eyed with false innocence. He dropped the act and smirked into his glass. “You’re here, and I know you don’t like us.”

“Weird,” Ben said.

“It looks to me as though there are three possible answers. One, you do have a fetish. In which case I’d be happy to indulge it. Two, you’re following me because you’re seeking intelligence on the First Order. If so, please ignore the part where I said I’d be happy to step on you for sexual purposes because this discussion is over. Three, you’re not here for me at all, and rather are looking for Di because you sit on a certain committee. If it’s option three, then I would like to add that the military thing is neither a dealbreaker nor a requirement for me, I’ll sleep with you regardless.”

“I come here for Rinnrivin Di,” Ben said, semi-truthfully.

“I’m here because my father owes several unpleasant people money and I don’t want it getting out to the rest of the Order. It would disgrace us both, so I’m taking care of it.” The lie was smooth. He must have practiced it until it felt like the truth. But Hux was lying.

Ben withdrew his leg so Hux wasn’t so trapped in his seat, as a gesture of goodwill. “You look like a man who doesn’t get the chance to let loose very often, Armitage.”

“Hux will be fine,” Hux said. “What are you proposing?”

“I’m going to make my way to the refresher. If I don’t see you there in ten minutes, I’ll pretend I never saw you at all. Hopefully we can still meet more formally to talk about Taris.”

“Or?”

“Or you come join me and maybe we get to know each other a bit better first.”

Hux raised an eyebrow. “For the record,” he said, and threw his drink back in one gulp. “I think your politics are bad, your sense of timing is worse, and I’m not all that impressed with your constant innuendo —please do not make the obvious joke, Ben.”

Ben, who had indeed been about to say something about Hux being impressed when he was ‘in your end-o,’ made a show of sealing and locking his lips.

Hux sighed. “You might as well get up now. I’ll need another drink before I’m willing to go into whatever disgusting pit masquerading as a refresher this cantina offers, but you don’t move very quickly so that should work out perfectly.”

“Am I buying this one too?” Ben said, amused.

“Weren’t you telling me how you’re functionally royalty?”

Hux turned slightly so their knees bumped together and then, not quite out of sight but discreet enough for where they were, put his hand very high up on Ben’s thigh. Any higher and he would have been groping Ben’s cock. Hux wasn’t wearing gloves this time, and his hands were still warm. When he squeezed a little, Ben could tell they were also pretty strong.

“Buy me a drink, your majesty,” Hux said, and took his hand back, leaving the ghost of his warmth behind. “I’m far less picky about things like sticky bartops and dirty floors when there’s a handsome prince getting me drunk.”

Ben flagged the candovantan down again. This time he got Hux a Toloosian Screamer. “Don’t shoot it,” he warned, standing up and hooking his cane out from under the bar.

He didn’t move _that_ slowly, Ben thought, leaning on the cane so his pfassking hip wouldn’t play up and cheat him out of sex. It was hard to concentrate on having fun when moving around too much caused stabbing pain. He glanced back and saw Hux take his first sip of the drink. For a second nothing happened. Then Hux gave one short, choked cough that seemed to surprise him, and his face went that delightful shade of pink again.

Ben grinned and turned back towards his destination. Only to find Rinnrivin Di standing in front of him.

“Wotcha, Kylo,” Di said. “Haven’t seen you for a while.”

Just because Di didn’t know who he was, didn’t mean Ben was in the mood to stand around and chat for long periods of time. “Old wounds.” Ben patted his own leg. From what he’d gathered, Di had somehow got the idea that Ben was injured in a war, although Ben wasn’t sure which one. “Can’t work, can’t afford to drink. And I’m not going to ask for credit, Di, I respect you too much.”

Di nodded thoughtfully. “You’re a good egg, Kylo,” he said. “Take some advice, don’t get involved with the human at the bar. Not the kind of trouble you want.”

It took all of Ben’s effort not to laugh in Di’s face. A spice running trafficker was giving him life advice on his taste in men? Of course he was. “Thanks, Di,” Ben said in a lazy drawl, “but I’m not looking to take him home to meet the family, you get me?”

Di did not get him.

“We’re going to fuck in the refresher,” Ben clarified.

“You take too long, some folks might get mad,” Di said. “Get a room for an hour, do it there.”

Ben gave Di his very best Solo smirk. “Maybe I will, after we fuck in the refresher.”

Di twitched his face so all the horns rose and fell. Ben thought it was his version of a shrug. “Don’t be a stranger, sabbac game’s coming up in two nights if you want in,” Di said and went about his business.

The refresher wasn’t that bad, all things considered. It was big enough to accommodate some of the bar’s larger patrons, so there was plenty of room, and it smelled more of whatever caustic substance was being used as a cleaning agent than anything else. The door had a lock. Not a good one, still better than nothing. And Ben had yet to meet a door he couldn’t open or jam depending on his needs. Plus, there was a mirror over a very sturdy sink, the combination of which was giving Ben ideas.

Hux appeared less than a minute later. Not very discreet, but then, no one in the cantina gave a damn. He flipped the lock and cast his eye over the room. “How perfectly squalid,” he said, with some relish. Hux planted a hand in the middle of Ben’s chest and pushed him backwards until his ass hit the very sturdy sink. “I’m going to suck your cock, unless you have any objections.”

Ben did not have any objections. His own ideas fizzled out under the gut-clenching lust that shocked through him when Hux went to his knees. “That’s pretty kinky yourself, Major,” Ben said. He wet his lips; his mouth suddenly felt very dry.

“If I’m going to have sex with the New Republican son of rebel scum in the refresher of a cantina owned by a drug cartel run by non-humans, then I’m going to do it properly.” Hux ran his hands up Ben’s legs to his hips and looked up, and up, to meet Ben’s eyes. “Feel free to pull my hair.”

Ben tried and failed to hook his cane on the sink next to him. It clattered to the floor next to Hux, who ignored it in favour of opening up Ben’s trousers and getting his cock out.

“At least you weren’t exaggerating about this,” Hux said, pleased, and licked the head.

As much as Ben wanted to get his hands into Hux’s pretty hair, if he did that, he was going to fall. So he settled for one hand in his hair, the other gripping the edge of the sink for dear life.

“Is that how it goes?” Ben said. “Is this the lowest you think you can go? Is that what gets you off?”

Hux closed his eyes and took Ben into his mouth with a soft moan. Ben tightened his hold in Hux’s hair and held him there, three-quarters of Ben’s cock stuffed down his throat. Hux wasn’t choking but it wouldn’t be comfortable either. He tugged against Ben’s grip, and when he couldn’t pull away, he shivered and then started moving his tongue as much as he could, rubbing along Ben’s cock, curling back to tease at the underside of the head, sucking a little, drooling a lot.

“Baby, this isn’t your rock bottom. This is your lucky day,” Ben said, trying to focus on something that wasn’t the way Hux was starting to swallow convulsively as he pushed further into his mouth. “You got sent all the way here, just to make deals with drug lords, and beg for literal scrap from socialites and wastrels. But I’m not going to make you do that.”

He pulled Hux off his dick. Think strings of saliva stretched from Ben’s cock to Hux’s open, wet mouth. Ben let go of Hux’s hair so he could rub his cock on Hux’s face, smearing the mess onto his cheek and chin.

“Ask me what I’m going to make you do,” Ben said.

A twinge of pain started in his hip. He shifted his weight to ease it, and instead of helping, the movement sent agony lancing all down his leg. His knee buckled and he wound up half crouched on the floor, pants around his ankles, cock bobbing sadly in the air.

Except Hux didn’t seem to think it was laughable, or off-putting. He shrugged his coat off and slid it underneath Ben so he could sit without putting his bare ass on the refresher floor. Then he said, “That’s quite enough, you don’t have to make the truth more sordid than it is. I’m already on my knees.”

Ben fisted both hands in Hux’s hair and pulled him down so he was bent all the way over, chest pressed to his own thighs. “Yeah you are,” Ben said, a little relieved as Hux bobbed up and down on his cock, his mouth stretched wide around it. “You want it so much, I’ll let you do all the work.” Ben was horrified when his voice caught, and it came out more as a request, a sad little plea to pretend that there wasn’t much he could do just then, and if Hux didn’t want to do all the work they’d probably have to stop.

Hux scraped his teeth ever so gently up Ben’s cock when he pulled back. “If you try and fuck my mouth you’ll probably choke me to death,” he said, very dryly. “For the sake of my voice if nothing else, please, let me do the work.”

He spread his knees, getting comfortable, and Ben could see his erection straining the front of his trousers. It helped, knowing that Hux was still turned on. Really turned on. Hux tucked one hand under Ben’s thigh, wrapping the other around the base of his cock, and swallowed Ben all the way down until his lips met his fist, moaning when he felt the head bumping up against the back of his throat.

Without his coat on, Ben could see the way Hux’s thighs and ass clenched as he licked and sucked at his cock, hand twisting and pulling around what he couldn’t fit comfortably. He didn’t have anything to push against, only the pressure from his clothing.

Ben tugged on his hair to get his attention. “Straddle my leg, I want to watch you rub yourself off because you’re so fucking hot for it just from having a dick in your mouth.”

Hux’s cheeks were flushed red now, either from humiliation and arousal or because he was having trouble breathing. Maybe all of the above. He did as Ben said though, flexing his hips so he could rub his cock against Ben’s thigh.

He was far down enough that Ben didn’t have to bend his knee very much until the edge of the bony cap was pressed right at the spot where his cock met his testicles. Hux went very still.

“That doesn’t hurt,” Ben said soothingly.

Cautiously, Hux moved a little, testing to see if Ben was right. His eyes went wide for a second as he registered that it actually felt pretty good, and then he closed them again and got back on Ben’s cock. It didn’t take very long before Hux started to make a lot more noise. Not just sloppy wet gulping and slurping when he pulled back, or choked gurgles when Ben fucked in and out of Hux’s throat, never mind that his hip was twinging again and Hux had said to spare his voice. Hux started making a desperate, pleading moan as he tried to rub off against Ben’s leg and couldn’t get any pressure where he needed it.

Ben leaned over Hux’s back so he could reach, and pushed his fingers hard against the seam of Hux’s trousers until he’d wedged the fabric up against Hux’s hole and taint. It trapped his head between Ben’s chest and thighs. Hux made a high, shocked whine that cut off with a slick ‘glurk’ as he was forced all the way onto Ben’s cock, throat stretched around the thick head, and held down, unable to move. He whined again, a little panicked, and squirmed desperately. Ben pushed his knee up just a bit harder, and Hux came, shaking and clutching at Ben’s thighs.

His throat worked convulsively around Ben’s cock, and that was more than enough for Ben. He sat back so Hux could lift up a bit and came in his mouth, only letting him up all the way so he could get the last of it splashed across Hux’s face. Hux stayed crouched over him, panting, come dripping off his eyelashes and drooling from his tongue, his lips and chin wet with it. Ben groaned and came in one last pulse, catching Hux in his open mouth.

“Oh fuck,” Ben said. “You look so good like that.”

Hux wiped come out of his eyes with his shirtsleeve and blinked tearily at Ben. He was a wreck. None of his clothes had survived the encounter unscathed.

Ben pulled him up by the chin and licked a streak of his own come off Hux’s cheek. “We’re gonna go to my place so you don’t have to go back to the First Order with your cock slopping around in your own mess, and my spunk all down your shirt, and in your hair. You can get your clothes laundered and, while you’re there, you might as well let the New Republican son of rebel scum fuck you up the ass in his decadent senate apartment.”

“I suppose,” Hux said in a hoarse rasp. He looked very pleased by the idea, not even annoyed by how fucked his voice was. “If I’m going to do this properly.”

X X X

Ben wanted to do more than just lie on his bed and have Hux ride him and was fully ready to make that happen. it wasn’t the first time he’d had sex while not at peak ability level, and he had resources. And accessories.

Paige had made the mistake of venturing into his bedroom before he’d had a chance to tidy up after a one-night stand. She’d asked him what it was before immediately holding up a hand to stop him from answering. “No, Ben,” she’d said, “don’t tell me what it is because one day soon I will have to look your mother in the face and she’ll say, ‘how is Ben doing?’ and I’ll say, ‘I guess he’s pretty good because he has a pfassking _fuck chair_ out in the open where his poor assistant had to see it!’ and then I’ll have to die because I will have said ‘fuck chair’ to General Organa.”

He’d reminded Paige that his mother was a Senator, not a rebel princess, even if being a rebel princess was, admittedly, much cooler. And he’d informed her that if she didn’t want to look at sex furniture, she should learn to knock.

Then Paige had said, “You know, if you put that flat bit on a slide you’d be able to sit or stand and just… Not a slide, that’ll get tiring. Something that does the heavy lifting for you. A coiled spring at the top, so you only have to push away, and the spring will push back, and those footrests mean if the other person is on their back they can push away as well, and basically just…”

It was at that point that she’d realized she was trying to soup up his sex chair and not literally anything else, and stopped talking. But she was right.

For being a prickly son of a bitch, Hux was easy-going enough when it came to getting fucked. He’d been perfectly happy to lie on his back on the padded bench with his feet braced and Ben’s cock splitting him open. Ben made him do the work anyway, until Hux's thighs were shaking as he pushed so the bench slid back, and he pulled away until only the very head of Ben’s cock was holding him open. And then the spring pushed him back so he was stuffed full again. Each time he pushed away, his legs shook a little bit more, and the return slide was less controlled until he was trembling with effort as he slowly moved away in uneven jerks, only to be shoved forcefully and quickly back in one smooth stroke, the air punched out of him in a gasp.

Ben let him struggle to keep going, enjoying the view. “That’s still easy for you, right?” Ben said innocently, and didn’t mention the spring was weighted and he hadn’t adjusted it for Hux.

Hux made a muffled sound of protest, and then a much louder groan when he was forced back, ass pressed snugly against Ben’s hips. He couldn’t even touch his own cock because he needed both hands to brace himself in the other direction.

“You tell me if it’s getting too much,” Ben said, but he did hold the bench still for a moment so he could adjust the tension and make it easier for Hux to bounce so nicely on his dick.

Hux arched his back, eyes screwing shut when Ben helped him out for a few strokes. He wasn’t going to say anything, because Ben was a thoughtful host, and he’d been concerned about Hux’s poor voice. So he’d balled up Hux’s come-soaked underwear and stuffed them in his mouth. They wouldn’t get laundered, but so be it. Hux didn’t have anything to say about anything after that, but since he was fully able to move away, or get up, or pull the underwear out of his mouth himself, Ben figured he was still enjoying himself. The stiff cock slapping against his belly every time Ben fucked into him was a good indication he was having fun.

He tried to say something and a thin line of saliva trailed out of the corner of his mouth, pearlescent with the come he was probably sucking out of the fabric every time he tried to swallow. His arms were shaking now, too, and he’d sweated out the pomade in his hair so it clung to his forehead and temples.

Ben turned his head so he could press a kiss to the pale, freckled skin of Hux’s thigh. “Okay, you don’t have to hold on with both hands now. Go ahead and play with your pretty pink cock for me.”

Hux glared at him for as long as it took for Ben to stop toying with him and actually use the grips on the side of the bench to move Hux back and forth himself. Ben had good upper body strength and it was a sprint, not a marathon, so he was able to fuck Hux with ruthlessly hard thrusts, pounding into his tight little ass until it made him yell loud enough to hear, even though the gag. Hux jerked himself roughly, his tired, overworked legs hanging limply over the foot-brace, just letting Ben move him on and off his cock however he liked.

“Knew you’d look just as good getting fucked,” Ben said, pulling Hux close so he could grind into him in close, hard little thrusts. He hadn’t overdone it, and he wasn’t in pain, and Hux was hot and tight around him, clenching around him as he tried to keep moving and couldn’t. Ben held him still and came in him, gritting out, “Just imagine what your officers and your soldiers would say if they could see you now. Bet they’d line up to have a taste. Should let recruits have a go, one after the other, until you’re so full of jizz you’d be able to hear it sloshing around when you moved. Bet you’d get your numbers up that way.”

Hux’s eyes opened like he’d been hit with a shock baton, and one leg kicked a little bit.

“Yeah yeah, Majors don’t recruit,” Ben said panting, still coming in a few final slow, luxurious pulses. He reached for Hux’s cock, but he was too slow. Hux came all over himself, tightening up all over until he was totally spent and collapsed flat. A filthy, perfect example of ‘rode hard and put away wet.’

Ben leaned back, feeling extremely pleased with himself, and watched Hux try to do...whatever it was he was trying to do. Sit up maybe. Hux gave it up as a bad job, and turned his head to the side so he didn’t have to reach very far to pull the underwear out of his mouth. He worked his jaw, stretching the muscle.

“You’ve got some imagination,” Hux said. He sounded worse, if anything, and Ben was a human man, he needed time between rounds, but if he could have gone again, he would have.

Ben chuckled and held out a hand so Hux could actually pull himself into a sitting position. “You’re too easy,” he said.

It would have been a good time to ask Hux a few leading questions, but Hux said, “I haven’t been fucked like that in years, but it wouldn’t be very good for me at all if we got caught. So I’m going to wait until I can feel both my legs, and maybe we could eat something, because I want to sit on your cock and have you fuck me one more time before I go. Are you amenable?”

Ben was amenable. He could ask Hux important questions after another round or two.

It required a bit of wrangling, but they managed to drag themselves into Ben’s bed without anyone’s jelly-legs taking them out. Ben got comfortable on his back, one arm tucked under his head and stared up at the mosaic. There were two-hundred and four pieces per set of interlocking heptagons, except for the utmost right corner, where someone had miscalculated the odd angle of the exterior wall, and so that set could only fit two-hundred and one. You couldn’t see it with a casual glance. Not even with a less-casual glance. In fact, because of the way the light hit the mirror glass, it made the flaw almost impossible to see except for certain times of the day. Ben had seen it, and he knew the count was wrong because he’d spent more than enough pain days flat on his back with nothing else to look at. On his worst days, he would lie there, seething with a sort of nihilistic rage, and imagine smashing the whole thing, grinding the glass back to sand and using it to bury the idiot who couldn’t measure a room. Ben had just had a spectacular orgasm, his pain was at a three, (except for a knot in his shoulder which just would not relax, but that wasn’t too bad) and so that night the flaw annoyed him less and he felt more like he was underwater than buried alive.

Hux leaned over the side of the bed and rummaged around in the crumpled heap of his clothing. The hard angles of his body were softened by the reflection of the lights dappled over his skin. Ben touched the ladder of Hux’s spine, tracing along the curve of a rib, feeling the movement of muscle and tendon under the skin as Hux breathed.

“What’re you looking for?” he asked. Hux did have a second blaster, and also a monomolecular blade he’d strapped to his arm, all of which were now on the floor.

Hux sat back, a crumpled pack of cigarras in his hand. “May I?”

"Go for it," Ben said.

Hux sparked his starter and lit a cigarra. He tossed the pack and starter onto his clothes as he exhaled a thick cloud of smoke. After a second Hux reached out and flicked the necklace Ben was still wearing. “You never take this off. Is it some kind of sex thing?”

Ben pushed his hand away and said, “You’ve known me, if this counts as knowing someone, for less than a standard week. We’ve had two conversations. I don’t think you’re qualified to suggest I always or never do something just because you sucked my cock.”

“I noticed you wore it with both your insane ensembles, even though it didn’t go with either one. So I checked the Senate holos," Hux said. Because of course he would be that kind of persistent, bureaucratic asshole. "I looked at a random selection of days. You’ve been wearing that exact necklace since you were confirmed to the Senate. And you’re wearing it now, when you don’t have any other jewelry on.”

“Excuse you,” Ben said. "My jewelry is always an exquisite match for my insane ensembles.”

Hux grunted in irritation. “I'd prefer a simple, 'kriff off,' over a lie."

Ben considered his options. "You really want to know?"

"No, I brought it up because I have no interest in the subject," Hux said and then frowned. “Kark it, I need an ashtray.”

“Use the waterglass,” Ben said, gesturing at the nightstand. He turned his head to really look at Hux and the ugly thud of a body shock pulsed through him. But it was just the one. “Alright, I’ll tell you,” he said. “But it’s a strange story.”

Hux took a deep drag of the cigarra. “You’re a strange man,” he said.

Ben watched the smoke curl around Hux’s head in a sort of halo. It was a shame, he thought, that Hux was on the side of the creature. He really was Ben’s type. Smart, too. And passionate. Ben was so used to dealing with complacent, greedy, selfish politicians that he forgot sometimes that there were people who believed in things with everything they had, and who wanted to make change in the galaxy. Hux believed in the First Order, which wasn’t ideal, but at least he’d taken a position and would fight for it.

“Ben?” Hux said.

“Huh?” Ben didn’t shake his head to clear out the cobwebs, but only because he didn’t want body shocks. “Oh, right. My story. There once was a girl whose name was Jenny and she always wore a green ribbon around her neck.”

Hux tapped the ash from the cigarra into the cup by the bed. “I don’t appreciate having my time wasted. Tell me or not. Don’t piss on my leg and tell me it’s raining.”

“I am telling you,” Ben said. “Just shut up and listen.

“There once was a girl whose name was Jenny and she always wore a green ribbon around her neck. One day, Jenny met a boy. He asked her why she always wore the green ribbon but Jenny refused to tell him. As they grew up, Jenny and the neighbour boy fell in love and eventually got married. He asked her again, on their wedding night, ‘Jenny, why do you always wear the green ribbon?’ But Jenny still wouldn’t tell him.

“Eventually they both grew old, and when Jenny was on her deathbed, her husband asked her again, ‘Jenny, why do you always wear that ribbon around your neck?’ At last Jenny said she would tell him. She said, ‘My love, now I can tell you. Untie it and you will see why I could not tell you before.’ Slowly and carefully he untied the green ribbon. And Jenny’s head fell off.”

For a long moment Hux just stared at him, the cigarra burning down between his fingers. Then he said with delighted horror, “Good grief. Is that the sort of thing your people read to children? How perfectly hideous. Are you suggesting if you remove that thing your head will fall off?”

“The story definitely fucked me up as a kid,” Ben said. “But yeah, if I take it off, I lose my head.” The scent from the cigarra finally caught his attention. “Is that tabacc?”

The corner of Hux's mouth turned up in something that wasn’t quite a smirk. “It's not tabacc," he said.

“Can I have a drag?” Ben said. “I know I said I don’t do spice, but you military pricks always have the best stuff and I’m willing to make an exception now and again.”

Hux scoffed derisively. “Spice? I wouldn’t touch the stuff if you paid me. And it’s not military either. This is homegrown Arkanis qunubu flower. I am actually from Arkanis, you know." Hux sucked in a long drag and then leaned over Ben and pressed their mouths together as if they were kissing. Hux exhaled, Ben inhaled, and he got the smoothest, heaviest hit of whatever the kriff they were growing on Arkanis.

Ben exhaled and closed his eyes. He liked to imagine tiny particles rushing into his blood, a soft buffer between his body and the pain receptors in his brain. He felt the muscles in his jaw relax for the first time in weeks, and when he rounded his shoulders, stretching the knot in his back, he felt it give way in a brief spark of pain that faded away to nothing but a vague soreness.

“ _Fuck_ ,” he said gratefully. “I’m going to get my assistant to talk to whoever you brought here. Seriously. Either you sell me some seeds, or cuttings, or whatever, or we need to set up some sort of bloom-purchasing arrangement. This is amazing.”

He watched as Hux visibly softened, the hard edges of him relaxing under the influence the way they didn’t even after an orgasm. “Are you in a lot of pain?” Hux asked, without much sympathy.

“It comes and goes,” Ben said.

Hux graciously held the end of the cigarra to Ben’s lips so he could take a drag on his own. “You can make oils out of the plant,” Hux said. “There’s no recreational effects, but it is a decent painkiller. And you can eat it. Tastes like hell added to standard rations—”

“That’s because standard rations taste like hell on their own,” Ben put in.

“—but a competent chef could certainly come up with something for you.” Hux looked down at Ben with his predator’s eyes, the light from the mosaic reflecting in them like tiny flames. “I suspect you would give quite a lot for reliable pain relief.”

“No,” Ben said firmly. “My morals aren’t negotiable. Not even for that.”

That seemed to puzzle Hux, which was fine; Ben didn’t need him to understand. Hux smoked, occasionally holding the cigarra out for Ben, apparently mulling this new information over. When there was nothing left of the cigarra, Hux dropped the roach end into the glass of water and watched it float like it held the secrets to the universe.

“I’ll give you the information of the woman I buy from,” Hux said, turning back to Ben. “Tell her I sent you and she probably won’t extort you.”

It was Ben’s turn to be puzzled. “Really?”

“You’re a very pitiable creature. Consider it my good deed for the year,” Hux said, but he was lying again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNINGS:  
> Ben holds Hux down so he can't take Ben's dick out of his mouth. Hux indicates he is in distress but although Ben lets him up, he lets him up for unrelated reasons. Afterwards Hux is clear that he enjoyed himself.
> 
> Later, Ben gags Hux so he can't say if he's alright or not, but notes that Hux isn't restrained and could very easily remove the gag himself, or stop the encounter entirely if he wanted to.
> 
> NOTES:  
> The story about someone getting kicked out of a country for being too handsome was taken from the rather exaggerated tale of Omar Borkan Al Gala, a model who claimed to have been ejected from Saudi Arabia because he was too handsome. This is almost certainly not what happened. But I love the idea that it could be.
> 
> Wuundut is a planet name wot I made up.
> 
> Zeltros is a pleasure planet from the extended universe and that’s literally all I know about that part of the extended universe.
> 
> Taris is a planet in the extended Star Wars universe that is littered with wrecks of spaceships. That’s...holy shit you guys, that’s worth a lot of goddamn money. Why were people just leaving entire ships lying around to rust?! Rey knew what was up! Strip the copper wiring and then sell the metal. Strip it to the bones and then sell the bones. Literally all of a spaceship should be recyclable. 
> 
> “Benya” is a nickname based off of the way the Russians like to nickname people. I think so anyway, because Russian nicknames involve way more understanding of Russian than I have (I have none), but Dennis becomes Denya sometimes, so in terms of vowels and consonants it seemed to work.
> 
> The Alder-Espirions are from SW canon and were a hybrid species of Espirions and humans from Alderaan.
> 
> My Brothers and Sisters, and Twenty Great Guys are descriptions of real scams that people do, but afaik there aren’t cool Leverage-type names for charity scams and mob rackets, so I made ‘em up.
> 
> The idea of Ben winding up dead at twenty-seven is a reference to the “twenty-seven club” which isn’t a club so much as a surprisingly long list of famous people (especially musicians/singers) who died at that age. Between 1969 and 1971 Brian Jones, Jimmi Hendrix, Jim Morrison and Janis Joplin all died which was notable since they were all 27 when they passed. But it became a Thing when Kurt Cobain also died at 27. The “club” also includes Robert Johnson (Cross Road Blues), Amy Winehouse, and Anton Yelchin. For some reason I thought it included River Phoenix and Heath Ledger, but Phoenix was 23 and Ledger was 28. According to statisticians, there is no actual phenomenon or spike in deaths at age 27 amongst any population.
> 
> The fuck chair/sex swing thing is based on an idea I had while considering how to make King Edward VII's fuck chair more accessible and with more options. Feel free to google 'Edward VII sex chair' it's pretty good sex furniture as these things go.
> 
> Qunubu is what the ancient Assyrians called cannabis. The word looked appropriately Star Wars-y so I used that.  
> 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My one chapter warning I will put upfront because it’s not a usual trigger someone might check for:
> 
> Ben’s outfit in this chapter includes a headscarf, as that’s pretty common in canon for Naboo clothing. During a sexual encounter (with something of a conquering emperor roleplay theme), Hux forcibly pulls the headscarf off. From what I can tell from the movies, wearing a headscarf is not a religious thing for Naboo. Padme is seen in public with and without her hair covered and so are others. When Hux removes Ben’s scarf during the sex scene, he’s not offending or upsetting Ben and it wasn’t done with the intention of upsetting or offending him. In no way is it meant to have the same implications as someone having a veil, hijab, wig, or other religious garment pulled off. I do realize, however, that it could be triggering for readers, so I wanted to give y’all advance warning.
> 
> Also, what is chapter length consistency? Never heard of her.

Hux was a ruthless negotiator, and if Ben had intended to give him the salvage they were haggling over, he would have been in a real fight to get the better end of the deal. Hux came prepared. He had figures and information about Ben and Keed’s operation that Ben didn’t think he even had himself. Hux knew the value of everything, he knew what things were worth across the galaxy, he knew transportation costs, costs of labour, where credits were being skimmed off the top, where prices were being inflated… And he used that information to shred Ben’s offers and counteroffers. Ben hadn’t had so much fun negotiating in ages. The best part was, because he didn’t plan on giving the First Order anything no matter what he promised Hux, he could just enjoy the process without having to worry about the outcome.

It was nothing for Ben to agree to what Hux wanted, and the more Hux thought he was winning, the less guarded he would be when Ben asked his questions. Or, Ben hoped so, at least. He went back and forth with Hux for long enough that Hux wouldn’t get suspicious, and then implied he’d cut him a deal so they could keep having sex; if Hux went home with good results, he might get sent to negotiate with Ben again, in the future. 

Hux turned his datapad off. “I thought we agreed not to talk about that. Ever,” he said.

Ben made a show of thinking about it. “Did we? I don’t remember. I remember you saying it would be bad if we were caught.”

“Very bad,” Hux said, but he was staring at the blank screen in his hands, clearly thinking about getting laid and weighing up the costs-benefits of doing it again.

“So, let’s not get caught,” Ben said. “We can figure out a way to be discreet.”

Hux looked up, an incredulous expression on his face. “Discreet?” he said. “Are you trying to be funny?”

Ben was wearing full court dress again, although it wasn't as elaborate as some of the others. The black silk skirts fell in a wide bell shape, and there were tiny jewels sewn into the fabric so it glittered when he moved. He had a headscarf wrapped over his hair, draped down over his neck, tucked into the neckline of the gown, covering everything but his painted face. It was actually one of his more subdued looks.

“I’ve been gathering intel on Rinnrivin Di's cartel for over a year and no one suspects me,” Ben pointed out. “Only the right people know about the Taris operation. I’m not suggesting we start a torrid affair like lovelorn, star-crossed dimwits on a holodrama. I’m saying that when you’re in the neighbourhood, it wouldn’t be too much effort to add ‘have sex’ to ‘make under-the-table deals the New Republic would shit themselves over, if they knew what I was up to.’”

Hux frowned, but he wasn’t saying no. His hesitation was as good as agreement, and they both knew it. If he was willing to let Ben try and persuade him, he’d already decided to be persuadable.

Ben drummed his ornately decorated nails on the desk to draw attention to them. And his rings. He’d made himself as decorative and expensive as possible without being obvious. Hux seemed to like his extremes, and he was betting Hux would have trouble resisting the opportunity to defile the member of a New Republic royal house, and a galactic senator, to boot.

“It’s a bad idea,” Hux said.

“We’re bad people,” Ben said with some amusement. “C’mon. I know you’ve been dying to fuck me like this. It’s going to make you crazy when I tell you the details.” He gestured down at himself. “I’m wearing fifteen yards of hand-woven, hand-painted silk. That’s just the top layer, by the way. There’s at least five yards more that you can’t even see. My jewelry is worth about a hundred-thousand credits in precious metals and jewels.”

Hux’s face started to go pink. His gloves creaked as he tightened his grip on the datapad.

“Most of the pieces were gifts, or inherited, which, let me tell you, was a very complicated process,” Ben said. “I didn’t even have to buy them myself.” He leaned back in the chair so Hux could get a really good look at him.

“Senator, this is very inappropriate,” Hux said, a little strangled.

Ben went in for the kill. “Do you want to know why I’m willing to have these silks torn, stained, or otherwise ruined? If you made a list of all my clothes based on how much they cost, this wouldn’t even be in the top ten. I’m still the most expensive fuck you’ll ever have. Come home with me and you can despoil a prince of Naboo and destroy some useless, pretty, wasteful things that are worth more than you’ll see in a year.”

Hux very carefully let go of his datapad and took a deep breath. “I really hope your office isn’t bugged.”

“Is that a yes?”

“I already regret this, but alright. Yes.” Hux didn’t sound like he was feeling very regretful. He even held out a hand to help Ben to his feet after getting up himself. He didn’t mention the cane, or how hard Ben was leaning on it on the way down to his speeder, and between the speeder and his apartment. 

Ben kept waiting for some comment, or question, or something, but Hux just followed him through his apartment, to his bedroom, without saying anything about it at all.

Ben hooked his cane over the grab bar next to his bed with enough force that it made a loud clanging sound. “You don’t have to humour me. I can—”

“You can stay where you’re put,” Hux said sternly. He took the bolster from the head of the bed and put it in the middle of the mattress, lengthways, patting it like he was calling a canid into position. “Face down, over that.”

It took the wind right out of Ben’s indignation. He’d been expecting Hux to treat him like he’d break in half if someone looked at him too hard. People tended to forget he could take care of himself the second they had the chance to fuck him.

“You can add more support if you need, but otherwise I expect you to do as you’re told.”

Ben unclenched his hands and forced himself to say, “Don’t try and bend either of my legs up and out to the side. My hips won’t rotate like that.”

“Good,” Hux said, voice nearly a purr, like Ben had said something wildly arousing and not told him about another frustrating way his body couldn’t move. He pulled his gloves off and dropped them carelessly on the floor. “What else?”

Ben wasn’t entirely sure how he was meant to feel about that new line of conversation. “There’s a few positions I can’t put my shoulders in without cutting off the blood flow to my arms and hands?” 

“You’ll let me know if that happens,” Hux said. He took one of Ben’s hands in his own and pressed a kiss to his knuckles just under his rings. Then he lifted Ben’s hand a little higher and licked at the sharp, painted ends of his nails so the points only just dragged down his tongue. “What else?”

“Don’t restrict my breathing,” Ben said, managing not to make it a question. “Or put anything in my mouth.”

“Very well,” Hux said. “Anything else? Last chance.”

Ben was very sure that wasn’t his last chance to let Hux know if something was hurting him. It made the threat feel almost playful.

Hux put his other hand over the notch of Ben’s collarbone, just at the base of his throat, pressing into the necklace that he wore under the scarf. Hux wasn’t even close to choking him but Ben flinched back. “Don’t…” he said, and didn’t know where to go with it.

Hux didn’t try and touch him there again. “Alright,” he said, a little more seriously. “How’s your spine?”

Ben realized he was clutching Hux’s wrist in a death grip. The bones in Hux’s arm grated under his fingers, but Hux just stood there, waiting. “Spine’s mostly okay,” Ben said and let go.

Hux patted Ben’s chest, in the middle, not near his neck, and then stepped back. “Do what you need to,” he said, easy, like Ben hadn’t nearly broken his bones when he’d done something Ben didn’t want.

Ben wasn’t initially sure what Hux was planning, but while he was fussing with the pillows, Hux fetched the wheeled mirror Ben had in his dressing room. Hux waited, watching, as Ben put a bottle of lubricant on the bed, within easy reach, and then struggled to climb over his own skirts and settle down into position. Once Ben was situated, Hux finished moving the mirror, setting it up directly in front of him.

It wasn’t the most attractive position Ben had ever seen himself in: fully dressed, hips up over a long, narrow but thick pillow on top of the bolster, and his chest on another cushion so he could be more comfortably angled and could fold his arms in front of him without arching his back. It was alright, but it wasn’t worth maybe being arrested for treason over.

Hux clearly disagreed.

“Look at you,” Hux said covetously, getting onto the bed. “Don’t be shy, I want to see you. You made yourself up so nicely.” He kneeled astride Ben’s legs and slowly began pulling the end of Ben’s headscarf out from where it was tucked into the low V-back of his court dress. “You may thank me for the compliment.”

Ben shivered as the fabric teased away from his shoulders. “Your Imperial Highness is generous,” he said, wanting Hux as off-balance as he felt.

Hux caught his gaze in the mirror and hesitated, a little wide-eyed.

“After you conquered Naboo, the Royal House did not expect leniency, but the Emperor is merciful,” Ben said, and winked at him. He was feeling much cheerier about the situation already: Hux wasn’t going to do anything he didn’t want, Ben was going to get spectacularly laid, and then he was going to find out where the creature was.

Hux opened and shut his mouth a few times and then gave him a wry smile. “You’re certain you can’t read minds?”

“You’ve got archetypal tastes,” Ben said.

Hux looked down at where he was still clutching a fistful of scarf. His expression turned calculating a split second before he abruptly planted one knee on Ben’s back —pinning him down without putting his full weight on his spine— and ripped the fabric up over Ben’s head. The scarf needed to be properly unwound, and the angle was bad, so it got stuck halfway off, pulled tight under his chin, nearly choking him. Nearly, but it wasn’t actually cutting off his air, and it was wedged under his jaw, not around his throat.

Ben reached up blindly and tugged the scarf down from the front, so it finally slid over the curve of his head and Hux was able to strip it from him and toss it aside. Ben’s hair had been in a tidy little bun, but it had come loose in the excitement and curled wildly around his face. His lipstick was already smudged. He’d lost an earring somewhere in the scarf.

Hux regarded Ben’s reflection with great satisfaction and took his knee off his back. “Perhaps I won’t put you to work like the other useless, ornamental nobles.” He traced a line on Ben’s bare skin, from his neck, between his shoulder blades, until he hit fabric, not quite halfway down Ben’s back, gentle now.

There were several layers of underskirts to navigate, but Hux just gathered them all up, bunching them together and pulling until they were in a small mountain in the small of Ben’s back, spilling to either side of him. Ben could hear seams rip and delicate fabric tear, and then the sharp intake of breath as Hux discovered Ben hadn’t bothered with underwear.

“You little slut,” Hux said with delight. He dug his fingers into Ben’s ass, pulling his cheeks apart. “Is this how you walk around all the time?”

It wasn’t, because it wasn’t very sanitary and it would mean he was putting his bare skin on expensive underskirts. Ben just pushed up into Hux’s punishing grip and tried to shake his hair out of his eyes. “Only to please your Imperial Majesty,” Ben said. “To show how much I want the Emperor’s generosity.”

Hux slapped Ben’s thigh hard enough to sting and pulled his own jacket off, throwing it away from the bed, and ripping his shirt open. His pale skin was flushed with arousal. He was a hundred miles away from the agent of the First Order Ben was trying to trick. Ben wiggled a bit, getting comfortable, enjoying himself, until Hux pushed his legs a little more open, not enough to hurt, but a little wider, pulled his cheeks apart and spat directly onto Ben’s hole.

“ _Fuck_ ” Ben said, clenching automatically in response to the feeling.

Hux adjusted his grip and forced Ben open again. “Hold still, I want to look at you,” he said.

“Yes,” Ben said. “Fuck, don’t though. Just put your cock in me.”

“Are you giving me orders?” Hux said, amusement threaded through the arousal in his voice. He used two fingers to rub the saliva into the skin around Ben’s hole. “You’re not very good at being a loyal subject.”

Ben groaned, fisting his hands in the sheets. “Another time, Emperor.”

Hux pulled his shirt and undershirt off, dogtags slapping against his chest. “You’re something else,” he said, almost laughing, and leaned over to lick a wet stripe up Ben’s spine. “Hips good?”

Ben watched Hux in the mirror as he leaned over and grabbed the bottle of lubricant. “Yeah?” Ben said, feeling an unexpected burst of fondness for the terrible man he was in bed with.

“Then hold on,” Hux said and pushed two fingers into Ben without any mercy at all, kneeling on his skirts to keep him from moving away. “Because you did ask for it.”

He barely gave Ben a second to adjust before he got his cock out and pushed that in, instead of his fingers. Ben swore helplessly as Hux shoved into him. He hadn’t thought about how he’d get any leverage when he lay down, and now he was stuck, ass up, with nothing to do but take Hux’s cock. It was glorious.

Hux was perfectly vicious. He put one knee between Ben’s legs and the other out to the side to give himself leverage, got a solid grip on Ben’s waist, and fucked him hard enough that it made Ben bounce a little bit on the mattress. He bent over Ben again, pressing kisses to his back, and then shoved a hand under him and wrapped his fist around Ben’s cock.

Ben tried to push into it, and into the cock in his ass, and into the soft, teasing mouth on his skin all at once, and wound up going nowhere at all.

Hux made a shushing sound and pulled him back just a little bit so he could stroke Ben’s cock properly. “Pretty, dangerous thing like you ought to be taken care of,” he said. “Let me…”

And Ben let him.

Hux got him panting for it, desperate to come, until he’d sweated through the paint, half of it smeared onto the sheets in front of him when he pressed his face to the bed to muffle the way he wanted to beg for it. He got an arm under Ben’s chest and pulled him up just enough to see how wrecked he was in the mirror.

Ben was pinned down, he was a mess, he was half dressed, and he could hear another seam give way somewhere in the bodice of the dress. Hux bit the earlobe that didn’t have an earring anymore.

“You want to be ornamental and useless sometimes, and I’d let you. I’d have you like this always. Spread out and waiting to be fucked. I’ll let you have it whenever you want. Fuck you on the throne of an empire. Put you on your knees in front of the whole galaxy, so everyone knows that you’re just a soft, pretty thing for me to put my cock in.”

“Yes,” Ben gasped. “Please, Hux.”

Hux sat back, teeth bared in a half-snarl, half-feral grin. “Sweet thing,” he said. “I’ll take such good care of you.” He’d touched himself so roughly, but he was more careful of Ben, jacking his cock with a firm hand, but not tight, or overly fast. 

Ben closed his eyes and let Hux pull him over the edge, orgasm taking him not in a rush, or a near-painful shock of pleasure, but in slow, steady bursts that went on and on as Hux fucked him through it. 

“Too much,” Ben gasped. “Hux, too much.”

“You’ll have as much pleasure as I want you to have,” Hux said, and managed to coax a little more come out of him, until his cock was dripping onto the silk under him, and he thought he might die from it.

He kept stroking Ben’s cock until it started to soften, and Ben was shaking and moaning from overstimulation.

“Are you sure?” Hux said. “I can keep going.” Ben made a truly pathetic whimpering sound and Hux kissed his back again. “Whatever you want.”

He planted both hands on the mattress, fucked into Ben with several brutal thrusts and then pulled out and came all over his ass, and the ruin of his skirts, and his bare back.

Ben let the aftershocks of pleasure move through him. He was comfortable enough where he was, he didn’t even need to move.

Hux was kneeling over him still, breathing hard. He stayed there for a moment, looking down at the mess he’d made of Ben, and then he tipped to the side, sitting down, and said, “We’re going to need to find some way to keep doing this.”

“I know,” Ben said morosely, reality creeping back in. “Shit. Help me out of this. I’m disgusting.”

They fumbled around for a bit, getting naked and wiping the majority of the come off themselves. Hux even took it upon himself to go to the refresher and bring Ben a wet cloth so he could do something about the remains of his paint, before he got it on anything else that would require laundering.

“They’re not really worth a hundred thousand credits,” Hux said when they'd decided that lying down and not moving for a while was probably the best option for both of them. He was holding one of Ben’s hands on his own chest, idly playing with the rings.

Ben tapped his nails on Hux’s sternum. “Probably more,” he said. “So I’m going to need you to help me find that other earring.”

Hux gaped at him, appalled.

X X X

They scrounged around in the kitchen for snacks, then rolled around in bed until they were both hard again. Ben didn’t have to try very hard to get Hux to suck his cock for a while, and then Ben got one big hand around both their dicks and jerked them off together. They made another glorious mess and Ben couldn’t remember the last time he’d had as much fun in bed.

As Ben lay in the mess of clothes and sheets with Hux, contemplating dinner, a sonic, and maybe eating Hux out, he realized he didn’t want to play the game any more. He’d spent so long running down leads, that he hadn’t stopped to think about what he was doing. He’d been so pleased to think that he could get information from a source he also get to have sex with. He’d been an idiot.

Hux wasn’t someone who he could keep around as a casual fuck. Hux was the prototype for a conditioned soldier. Whatever they did to Stormtroopers, they’d done to him at his officer training but he was too deep in it to even realize how little control he had over his own thoughts. It wouldn't be pleasing, working Hux over, because Hux was a terrible person who wanted terrible things, but he’d been conditioned from birth, Now Ben felt sorry for him, the same way he would have felt sorry for any other mutated freaks of nature too twisted to survive outside of their own specialized environment.

Hux brushed a curl of hair out of Ben’s face. “Are you alright?” he said. He was smiling a little bit. He liked Ben, even if he probably didn’t know what that even meant.

Ben had wanted to trick Hux into telling him about the Supreme Leader of the First Order. Enough leverage, and persuasion, and distraction, and he’d thought maybe he could get Hux to be indiscreet. But Hux had been careful not to hurt Ben, and he'd found Ben's other earring, and he thought they could keep fucking around, because Hux thought they were still playing a game. Ben was too tired to keep going.

It was too late for Hux, Ben told himself. All Ben could do was try and save himself. He stared into the blinding light of the sunset reflecting off the mosaic overhead. “You need to tell me about your Supreme Leader,” he said. “Everything about who he is, what he wants, his plans, and where he is.”

Hux sat up. His hair was sticking up every which way and there was red lip paint smeared along his jaw although Ben had no idea how he'd even got it there. “I beg your pardon?”

“He’s been trying to recruit me,” Ben said, not bothering to move yet.

“You what?”

“Your supreme leader can use the Force,” Ben said. “And so can I.”

Hux pulled the end of the sheet over his lap, winding it around himself as much as possible. “Let me make one thing perfectly clear: I will not tell you about Supreme Leader Snoke.”

“His location,” Ben said, bargaining. “Just that.”

“This isn’t some new sex thing is it,” Hux said doubtfully, “you interrogating me? Because this is very odd, and very inappropriate… and if we’re going to do that, then the questions should probably be less serious.”

Ben pulled Hux down onto his back on the bed and crawled up over him. He took Hux’s face in his hands, thumbs under his eyes in a vague threat. Ben’s hands were big enough that he could easily hold his entire head, keeping him pinned in place. “It’s not a sex thing,” Ben said apologetically. “And if you don’t tell me, I’m going to make you wish you were dead.”

Hux’s mouth pressed into a thin line but he didn’t try to get away. “Is this your idea of an actual, real interrogation? I’m happy to provide you with my name, rank, and serial number, but that’s all you’ll get out of me. Whatever it is you want—”

“I want to know his name,” Ben snarled, digging his fingers in hard against the bone.

Hux blinked at him, taken aback by his ferocity. “I just said: Snoke. It’s not a secret,” he said. 

“Where is he?”

“Ben, don’t start this.” Hux put his hands on Ben’s ankles, where they were tucked up next to his hips, holding on very gently. “Let’s just be enemies who fuck and not make it more complicated than that.”

The clasps to Ben’s necklace were extremely difficult to undo; it wasn’t supposed to come off. He hadn’t taken it off in five years.

Ben unlocked the choker and tossed it onto the bed. He took a deep breath and then another as some strange thing in his body woke up like pins and needles and spread all through him. He rolled his shoulders and turned his head from one side to the other, cracking his neck.

“Now what?” Hux said wearily and with no small amount of sarcasm. “Is your head going to fall off?”

Ben took Hux’s face in his hands again, and set his weight to brace himself as best he could. “I didn’t say my head was going to fall off. I said I’d lose my head.”

There was immense pressure pushing down on him; a hundred thousand spikes of pain lancing through the fog of his medication and waking up something he’d tried so hard to bury. Ben wanted to laugh, but he couldn’t catch his breath. He managed to say, “I guess idioms don't always translate planet to planet. Do you know what losing your head means? It’s not literal decapitation, it’s a loss of self-control.”

The Force was in everything. It moved through everything, even people who couldn’t feel it. It moved through Ben.

It came over him like the inhale of someone who hadn’t been breathing; the renewed heartbeat of someone who had flatlined; the cry of a baby’s first breath; the collapse of a star; the crushing weight of a wave rolling him under and smashing through him. It was ecstasy and agony. 

When Ben was sixteen he wrote a note, stole a ship, and left behind his entire life and everyone who knew him and loved him. He ran away and he kept running until he found a solution. Not a permanent one, he'd hoped, but something to buy him time and hide him from the creature. There weren’t too many Force-suppression collars left in the galaxy. Not much call for them, since the Sith were gone and most of the Jedi too, but Ben found one. 

He’d locked himself in, and for the first time in his life he’d been free. Cutting himself off from the Force hurt like he’d amputated a limb, like he’d ripped out a vital organ, and he could barely breathe with the squirming, disgusting wrongness of it, but he was safe. The people he loved were safe. He could go home and no one would die.

It hadn’t been enough, long-term. The midi-chlorians grew and spread through him like metastatic cancer. They kept coming back, no matter what he did. Ben destroyed himself over, and over, and over, and it wasn’t enough to cut the Force out. So Ben took medication that scorched his blood and made him desperately sick. He knew he was in a race to the bottom: he had to kill the creature before the medication could kill him first. And all the time the creature was trying to get to him.

Now though… Now he was free from the chains he’d bound himself in. Ben could stretch out over the universe and take it into him. He _was_ power. 

Except, his body was still poisoned and depleted and not ready to channel all that energy. He’d rewired himself and now it was like too many watts of electricity through the wrong wires. He was burning alive. Ben thought he ought to be dripping sparks, shedding plasma in great arcs of energy. He could feel the Force humming through every cell of his body, changing him, ripping him apart and remaking him. 

He was something more than Ben Solo. He was the tipping point that destiny balanced on. He was some hideous thing that grew horror and pain inside it and brought that misery with it everywhere it went. He could drag himself, half-corpse and half-god, through the galaxy and remake existence around himself as he pleased. He could be the destroyer. He could be the dark.

“Tell me where Snoke is,” the thing they called Ben said.

“Go fuck yourself,” Hux said. 

Hux’s eyelashes were nearly translucent and the thing that once was Ben loved the way they trembled. He loved the way the light caught on the ceiling and turned the room into a strange underwater palace. He loved the way his long, sharpened nails broke through the thin skin of Hux’s face and how the blood beaded, welled up fat and bright, and then dripped onto the sheets.

“Let me go,” Hux said, tight and panicked as the terrible thing crouched over him let all that power flow through its imperfect conduit of corrupted flesh, gathering the Force close around it, filling itself until every atom cried out for mercy. There was no mercy. There could be no mercy from the thing, and certainly not for it.

“Ben didn’t want to hurt you,” it said. “He was sorry.” It forged its power into a spike, drove it into Hux’s mind, and cracked him wide open.

XXX

There were infinite worlds, galaxies, potentials.

Time flowed around him.

A small child looked up at a woman who wouldn’t let his father beat him, but didn’t stop the rest of it. She taught him to be brave.

Endless rows of masks standing before an emperor. Before a tyrant. Before a Sith lord. Before him.

A galaxy of masked faces.

A holy planet collapsed in on itself and the screaming of blaster bolts held suspended in the air.

A voice in the night whispering lies that sound true.

The tidal pull of destiny.

The twisted, melted wreck of Vader’s helmet.

Rey, bloodied and scared in the snow.

Hands on his arms and shoulders, pushing.

The silent carnage of one ship driven deliberately into another. 

“Please, please, gods please don’t—”

The rending pain of a bowcaster bolt and the wounded howl of a wookiee.

Worlds devoid of hope and light.

A man who dreams of a machine that will swallow the sky.

A throne. A sword. A creature with a twisted, scarred face and a voice he knows better than his own.

A destiny and a purpose laid out for him at the creature’s command.

Fingernails clawing at his flesh.

Red lights stretching out overhead and the horror. The horror. The horror of millions of souls ripped from the Force.

The temple burning and the children screaming. Ash black on his hands, blood red on his hands.

A man with blood under his nails, finally going still.

The vastness of space and time stretched out before him.

A man under him. Lying pale and still in a bed strewn with silk and fine linen. Red hair on the sheets like blood in the snow.

The temple didn’t burn. He didn’t do that. He didn’t take that path.

He had a name. He has a name.

Something nearby was slimy, creeping, vile. He reached for it. Took it up and laid it against his torn skin. Let that vileness sink into his rotten bones. Let it drain him dry.

He wrapped a circle of death around his own throat and gave in to it once more.

XXX

Ben let Hux go, pulling back into himself as the Force was ripped out of him, and he was himself again. The clasps on the dampener were hard to close with the way his hands were shaking, but he jammed them shut. His body reawoke in agony: blood burning, skin crawling, every part of him fighting against the violation he brought on himself.

Hux wasn’t moving. 

Ben shook him, sweat or tears of pain dripping off his face, splashing onto Hux’s skin and the bed. “Wake up,” Ben said. Something pinched in his neck and sent fresh waves of pain down one arm and all through his back. He writhed, trying to ease the feeling of knives stuck into his spine and pelvis. “Hux…” he said, begging. He just wanted to know where Snoke was. He hadn’t pushed that hard.

He hadn’t meant to push that hard.

Hux opened his eyes. Still alive. 

“Oh fuck,” Hux said in a panicked, gravelly rasp. “Oh shitting fuck. You’re a _Jedi_.”

“Not a Jedi,” Ben said. He took a deep breath. And then another. In through his nose, out through his mouth. His vision spotted with black and then went totally dark. His ears rang with a high, buzzing tone, and his mouth flooded with saliva. Even blinded, one wrong move from fainting, Ben got his hands back around Hux's face. “Tell me what I want to know, or I’ll do it again.”

Hux’s skin was cold and clammy with fear, and when he pushed helplessly at Ben’s shoulders, Ben realized he was scratched and bloodied. Hux had clawed half the skin off him, trying to get away. 

“I don’t know!” Hux said desperately. “I only met the Supreme Leader once, when I made Major. He asked me about one or two of my pet weapons engineering projects. That’s it. He’s not stationed on the ship that I’m on and that’s all the information I have about his location. It doesn’t matter what you do to me, I can’t tell you what you want to know!”

Ben’s vision began to clear as the faint receded and the ringing got quieter and faded out. He thought about trying to channel the Force again, or trying to read Hux's mind, and wanted to throw up. He rolled to the side instead, lying flat on his back next to Hux, both of them panting for air and shivering from leftover adrenaline.

“I’d fight you all the way if I did know,” Hux said.

“I know,” Ben said. He was so tired. “You should have stabbed me.”

Hux started to really shake, like he’d just realized what he’d escaped. “My blade is with my clothes, and my clothes are...very far away.” Neither of them said anything for a while, and then Hux said, as if they’d been having a conversation, “You should train in it, you might be able to read minds without anyone noticing, and that would give you such a spectacular advantage. If you could influence people… You could do anything you wanted.”

“Sure,” Ben said. He’d found out what the creature looked like, and his name, and what he wanted. But he still didn’t know how to find him. All of that, and he still didn’t know what to do next. He wasn’t even upset anymore. He just felt exhausted.

“You’re Darth Vader’s grandson.” Hux didn’t say it with disdain or too much interest, only that same shocky calm. “If you could do half of what he could…”

Ben turned his head to the side, and waited until the palpitations and brain-body pulses stopped. Hux looked terrible. There was a burst blood vessel in his right eye and he was just as pale and waxy as his skin had felt.

“Your necklace blocks the Force,” Hux said. “That’s why you always wear it."

Ben rolled over so he was curled up on his side facing Hux. He was cold and wished he wasn’t quite so naked. “Yeah.”

“That’s why you’re sick. You’re making yourself sick, and cutting off your access to power most of the rest of us would happily kill someone to have.” Hux sat up, knees tucked to his chest, arms around them. He didn't try to get away. Probably he didn't think he'd make it if he did. “My mentor met your grandfather," Hux said. "She was only a cadet but she helped foil an attempt on his life."

Ben wanted a bath, and he wanted his sheets changed so they didn’t smell of Hux when he went to sleep. He wished Hux wasn’t working for Snoke, and that his body didn’t hurt, and that his life wasn’t so fucking hard all the time. He wished it wouldn’t have been giving up to just let something kill him. Ben rubbed one eye, a little too hard, so that he wouldn’t do anything embarrassing like cry in front of his enemy. "Wouldn't've mattered," he said at last. “Anakin sired my mother long before he became a Sith lord. Your mentor's good deed didn't somehow lead to me raping you."

Hux flinched violently. "You didn't."

Ben shrugged as much as he could lying down. "Got a better word for it?"

Hux swallowed loudly in the quiet. Then he said, “I’m going to get my things and leave now,” like it was a question.

“I just wanted to know how to find Snoke,” Ben said.

Hux didn’t waste any time, but then, he was military, and Ben didn’t figure they took too long to get their kit on. Hux pulled his clothes on haphazardly; jacket and shirt open, coat slung over his shoulders. He had armed himself again, but he didn’t try and shoot Ben. 

Ben didn’t know why not.

Hux hesitated, clutching his boots to his chest. “If you knew…Why… Why fuck me? You must have known you couldn’t seduce the information out of me. Why not just start with the interrogation?”

Ben burst out into inappropriate laughter. It tweaked whatever had pinched in his neck but he still required a minute to get himself back under control. “Honestly? I like redheads,” he said.

A muscle in Hux’s cheek ticked. He had to be clenching his jaw pretty tightly. “You aren’t the hero here,” he said in a rush, unable to contain it. “You’re not on the side of righteousness, or whatever story you’re telling yourself.”

“Of course not,” Ben said. “Snoke took all that, so now there’s no light, or dark. That’s for people with choices. I’m whatever I have to be to survive. When you get back to them, tell Snoke I’ll find him if it’s the last thing I do. And on my way I’m going to destroy the First Order, not because it’s the right thing to do, but because he’s pissed me off. I’ll do it out of sheer spite.”

Hux didn’t bother to put his socks back on, he just jammed his feet into his boots, the tops of his trousers bunched up at the top. He kept his eyes on Ben the whole time. “As you say.” For a moment Hux stood there, unmoving, and Ben could practically see his mind working. In the end, all Hux said was, “Don’t be sorry. It’s a war.”

His socks were under the nightstand. He left them behind when he went. 

A while later Ben realized he could see Hux's cigarra pack under the nightstand with his socks. It took Ben nearly fifteen minutes to gather his strength, but eventually was able to crawl to the edge of the bed and then slide off in a barely controlled fall. He sat on the floor and used his foot to drag the cigarra pack towards him. From his new vantage point, Ben could see a missing tube of lipstick and Hux’s underwear as well as the socks.

He’d frightened Hux badly. He’d hurt him, too, in ways that most people didn’t think they could be hurt.

Ben had rotten luck when it came to the grand scheme of things, but he was pretty fortunate on the smaller stuff. Hux had his starter inside the cigarra package, so Ben was able to light one without having to move from his place on the floor. Once the qunubu smoke had muffled everything until his head felt as though it was filled with nothing but fluff and stuffing, he snagged his comm and used it to call Paige.

“Cancel everything for the next week. I need you to comm Riis. But also send a message to Luke. I fucked up. I fucked it up this time. Tell him...”

“I’m getting your mom,” Paige said. He could hear her tapping out messages on her datapad. 

“Don’t call Leia,” Ben said. He thought he might cry, but his eyes were dry. They burned and ached like he wanted to weep, but he didn’t. “I’m alright, I just…” He sucked in a drag and let the thought burn away. He wasn't 'just' anything, and he didn't have enough energy to pretend he was fine. “I took it off. I fucked Hux, and I took it off. I need to talk to Luke, he'll know what to do.”

“Damn it,” Paige said without any real surprise. “As your friend and as your assistant, I would like to point out that there are plenty of gingers in the galaxy, you didn't have to stick your dick in the enemy.”

Ben barked out a laugh; it didn’t sound good. “I also threatened his life a little, if that makes you feel better.”

“I don’t want to know about your weird sex games,” Paige said, still tapping away in the background. “Riis is on the way. She should be there soon. Try not to screw any more agents of evil before she gets there. And don’t be mad when Leia shows up too.”

“Love you,” Ben said.

“You’re gross and I hate you,” Paige said with great affection and greater sadness. “Please just stay where you are, Riis will be there soon. You're going to be okay, I promise; help's on the way.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kylo’s outfit is based on the Escape from Naboo dress, or whatever that thing is called. It would almost certainly require hoops to get it to fall like that, probably Tudor-style. Can you fuck in a dress with a hoop? Sure can. You could probably have sex in the exact position I wanted for the sex scene without any difficulty at all, but I just didn’t like the mental aesthetic, so...something something no bras in space, I do what I want. Pretend it’s there if the idea of Not having it there makes your heart sad.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once more the amazing art was done by [Lilander](https://twitter.com/lilandersw) who blew my mind and used different styles of art for each piece and of them were badass, and all of them were done really, really well.
> 
> As a quick warning, at one point In this chapter Ben refers to himself as a cripple. Some people with disabilities do refer to themselves that way, some do not. It’s like ‘queer’ or ‘dyke’ or ‘mental’ or a hundred other words that some people within the relevant minority have chosen to reclaim, and some have not. Context is key. Personal relationship to the word is key. What’s good for the goose isn’t always good for the gander, or however that expression goes.

Riis got Ben cleaned, dressed, and tucked into bed before Leia showed up. Leia knew full well what had happened, because Paige was a tattle-tale, a good assistant, and a good person, and Leia needed to know, even if Ben wouldn’t tell her. At least she hadn't seen him mostly naked on the floor, getting high next to the mess of sheets and ruined silk he’d fucked the enemy in, with her own two eyes.

Paige’s comm had pulled her out of a meeting, so Ben had thought Leia might shout at him a little bit but she’d only said, “Oh, _Ben_ ,” in a way that made him feel about five years old and two inches tall. Then Leia took off the house slippers he kept for her and sat on his bed, leaning back against the headboard. She set a pillow in her lap so he could put his head down and just sat with him. She braided his hair and then combed the braids out again just because it felt nice for him, and she rubbed the bare skin of his shoulders and arms that wasn’t covered in bacta when he started to get cold. Hux had done more damage than Ben had realized at first; he’d managed to tear into one of Ben’s muscles in his fight to get away. It was sheer luck that he hadn’t been able to reach Ben’s face, or Ben might have wound up missing an eye. Ben hadn’t even noticed the blood.

No one was shouting about it though. Leia hadn’t shouted at him about his injuries. Or about why he’d been in bed with the First Order in the first place. Or about taking off the Force-suppression collar. Or what did he think he was doing and how he was reckless like his father (conveniently forgetting all the times she’d been just as reckless and daring). She just sat there and held Ben as if he wasn’t twice her size and a walking time bomb.

Leia hadn’t shouted at him in ages. Ben's stomach dropped like he was falling from a great height. He had the terrible feeling that Leia was working very hard not to say anything in anger because she was afraid she might not get enough time to take it back.

“Mum,” Ben said, stricken.

She rubbed her thumb over a patch of bacta which had mostly done its job and wasn’t so sticky anymore, and pulled the sheets over him so he was covered. “Luke’s coming as fast as he can,” she said. “And then the three of us are going to sit down together and figure something out. This isn’t working anymore.”

He didn't bother to tell her he'd been wrong to ask for Luke. Luke wasn’t going to have the answer. He would have already told them if he’d thought of something. It didn’t matter though. Even if Ben told him not to come, he would, now. Ben hadn’t seen his uncle in a long time, it might be nice to get a visit, even if it was starting to feel like everyone was coming to his sickbed to say goodbye to him.

He tried not to think about it, and had nearly managed to pass out, when Leia said, very quietly, “I think I sensed him, when I was pregnant with you. I thought it was Anakin’s legacy, my family legacy, that had seeded a deep vein of darkness in my baby, but it was Snoke. I was too afraid to say anything out loud, and I should have. I could have done something.”

“You did what you thought was right with the information you had,” Ben said. It had taken him a long time to accept that, because it was hard to accept and involved a lot more forgiveness than Ben was usually able to muster. But it was true, and Leia needed to hear him say it. “You didn’t make me sick.” When he looked up at her, her eyes were glassy with unshed tears and there was a stubborn set to her chin that he had seen plenty of times in the mirror.

“I didn’t make you better,” she said, then blinked rapidly and put a smile on her face. “Never mind all that. Did I ever tell you about the ghans that lived in the gardens of the palace when I was a girl? Not because anyone had invited them to stay, but because it was impossible to chase them off.”

“The reptavians? Maybe,” Ben said. “What’d they do?”

Leia settled back more comfortably against the headboard. “What didn’t those horrible creatures do…” she began.

She didn’t talk about Alderaan very often, carefully parcelling out her memories, so she always had something to tell him about her parents who never got to see their grandson, and all the other people she had known, and lost. She’d been about Ben’s age when Alderaan was destroyed. Barely two decades of memories to pass on.

Leia talked about the ghans, and then went into a comedy of errors about a diplomatic mission Breha and Bail had been on that involved a rudely shaped gherkin, a hotel suite with too many beds, and five men named Sellagir, which was a perfectly reasonable name on that planet, but was slang for sex in public restrooms in an Alderaanian dialect.

Ben stayed awake as long as he could. His mother wasn’t an alarmist. If she thought it was time for them to stop fighting and for him to hear her stories, then it probably was. Even if her fear was the most terrifying part of all.

X X X

Ben was well enough the next day to pull on what was technically an over-the-top dressing gown (but looked like real clothes over holo), make up his face, and sit through a few Senate calls and meetings. He didn’t hurt any more or less than he would have on a bad pain day —and it was a bad pain day— but it wasn’t anything new. Ben couldn't tell if that was good news, or if the lack of change was hiding something more sinister. Either way, there was nothing he could do about it, so he did what he did every other morning: he got on with it.

Ben had expected a lot of things from his afternoon. A little bit of vertigo. Some body shocks. Nausea. Maybe doing some work via his datapad if he could get his brain to focus on something for more than a minute. He was certainly not expecting to see Hux ever again. Nevertheless, not too long after he’d recovered from his midday meal, Paige told him he had a visitor, and there Hux was.

Hux was very pale and his eyes were reddened from fatigue, the right one still webbed with burst blood vessels. He’d put himself together though: the parting in his hair was ruler-straight, and his boots were shiny enough that Ben thought he might be able to see his reflection in them. Hux was starched and pressed within an inch of his life, every line of his not-a-uniform uniform was perfect. He was trying to put on a brave face and Ben thought he’d actually done a pretty decent job of it.

“Senator Amidala,” he said formally. “Thank you for seeing me.”

Paige glared at Hux, not bothering to hide her dislike. “I can get rid of him if you want,” she said to Ben. She'd shown Hux in and looked eager to show him back out.

Ben set his datapad down and shifted his lapdesk to the side. “That’s alright. I’ll be fine.”

Hux made an incredulous snorting sound. “Are you serious?” he said. “You’re worried about _him_?”

Paige went toe-to-toe with Hux even though the top of her head only came to his nose. She squared her shoulders and said, “You don’t do anything—” Paige poked him in the chest, hard enough to rock him back on his heels. “Anything.” She poked him again. “Don’t say anything.” Poke. “Don’t do anything.” Poke. “Don’t so much as look at Senator Amidala in a way he doesn’t like. Or I’ll toss you out the window myself.” She poked him one more time for good measure and scowled up at him. “Got it?”

“He’s got it,” Ben said, because Hux was starting to get a bit blotchy with some barely held-back emotion, and he didn’t want things to get out of hand before they even began. “Thank you, Paige.”

She pointed two fingers at her own eyes and then at Hux. “Not one wrong move, Imperial scum,” she said and left the room, shoulder-checking him as she went.

“Does she know?” Hux asked, after the door clicked shut behind Paige. He turned his head as if listening to see if she’d really left, or was eavesdropping.

Ben didn’t care if she wanted to listen in. He’d probably wind up telling her the whole thing anyway. “What? Oh, about the Force-thing? Paige knows. There’s a few people who do, ten maybe.” Ben smoothed the throw blanket spread over his legs, even though it was perfectly fine as it was. “I appreciate you not mentioning it to anyone, or telling the Senate I assaulted you. Although I don’t know why you haven’t.”

“I haven’t decided what I want to do yet,” Hux said. He still hadn’t moved from his spot by the door. It was a pretty big room.

Ben picked up a stylus and put it back down. He didn’t know what to do with his hands. He’d removed the false tips so his nails were blunt, short, and unpainted. He remembered back when he’d first started training to use a lightsaber and his palms and fingers had been rough with calluses. Building them up had been a pain in the ass, and the endless peeling and itching as they broke down from disuse had been even worse. He’d known, in his heart, that no matter what he told everyone else, he probably was never going to use one . Unless you counted the handful of times Rey humoured him and kicked his ass for a while for fun.

“Senator?”

He’d sacrificed his life as he knew it because he didn’t want to be consumed by the dark side. After five years of trying to be good, the first thing he’d done with the Force was violate someone’s mind. The only person he’d been protecting was himself. He hadn’t had to do it.

He’d _liked it_. Even though it hurt. The pain was just because of the medication. If he stopped taking it, he’d get better. He’d probably get better. Ben wasn’t sure how much permanent damage he’d done to himself.

Even if it did hurt to use the Force, that wouldn’t matter so very much. Ben had felt… Incredible. Powerful. More than himself.

No wonder Snoke wanted him.

There was too much darkness in him. He should weld the fucking collar shut so he’d never be tempted to take it off again.

Ben tucked his hands under his elbows, feeling too-big and too-fragile all at the same time. “You don’t have to stand all the way over there,” he said, sick with remorse. “I won’t do it again.”

Hux took a step closer and then hesitated, chewing on the inside of his lip. “You won’t do it again because I don’t have any information,” he said, calculating.

It took a lot to surprise Ben, but Hux kept doing it. “Because I shouldn’t've done it in the first place. Do you have more information?”

“No.” Hux seemed to find his resolve. He came and sat on the chair next to Ben’s bed, perching stiffly on the very edge of the cushion. “But I’m more comfortable with the idea that you won’t do it because it would be a waste of your own time and energy, and not because you feel badly about it. Feelings can change, but regardless of mood, interrogating me will still be a waste of your time.”

It was exactly the sort of brutal pragmatism Ben had come to expect from Hux.

“Do not apologize to me,” Hux said preemptively. “I certainly wouldn’t apologize to you, were the situation reversed.”

Ben gave him a small, closed-mouth smile. “I like to think I’m a better person than you.”

“You’re only nominally a person at all,” Hux said. “No, don’t get upset, that’s not a moral judgement. I just mean that the things you can do are extraordinary.”

“Go on,” Ben said, because he had no idea where Hux was going but he was desperately curious as to what might make him come back, even though he was scared. And Hux was still scared. He kept flexing his right wrist and hand, stopping just shy of the movement that would extend his monomolecular blade out from the sheath hidden up his sleeve. Having his throat cut wouldn’t be a terrible way to go, Ben thought idly. Almost ironic.

“I mentioned to you that my mentor met your grandfather,” Hux said. “Grand Admiral Rae Sloane, if you’ve heard of her. She told me what Lord Vader could really do. Not the exaggerations, or the propaganda, or the scuttlebutt, but what she or trusted sources witnessed themselves. I believed her, of course, but it’s not the same as seeing it.”

“Are you asking if I’m as strong in the Force as Darth Vader?” Ben said. “Because I’m not.”

“I’m quite sure you have no idea one way or the other,” Hux said. “How could you? You’ve hobbled yourself. You’ve made yourself small and ordinary, when you could be great. And still, after years of letting all that power atrophy, without any training, you were able to _read my mind_.”

Ben wished he was able to get up and pace around. He thought it might have helped expend some of the nervous energy racing all through him. “I mostly got… futures. Potential futures, I mean. I’d never tried to read someone’s mind before.”

Hux’s lips pressed together. He took a moment before he said, carefully calm, “You can see the future.”

“Kind of?” Ben said.

“You can read minds. And see the future,” Hux said, still very calmly. So calm it was starting to sound a bit hysterical.

“It’s less useful than it sounds,” Ben said apologetically. “And I didn’t spy on your thoughts or anything. I was, truely, just trying to see where Snoke was.”

Hux wet his lips. “You could be spectacular.” He took a deep breath and said, “This might sound foolish to you, but have you stopped to think about Snoke’s offer? I mean really think about it.”

Ben wanted to laugh, but Hux was deadly serious. Unfortunately, that seriousness made the whole situation so much more absurd. Ben tried to hold back his laugh and wound up snorting instead. That did it. He fell back against the pillows in hysterics. “Join the First Order,” Ben wheezed. He had to stop laughing or he’d smudge his paint. He dabbed at his eyes with a handkerchief. “Hux…” He succumbed to the laughter again.

“It’s not funny,” Hux said, a little sulkily.

“Me,” Ben said. “Join the army? Was it my taste in clothes, men, or the fact that I’m a cripple that made you think, ‘this is a man who should join the army!’”

Hux’s frown got all the deeper. “I wasn’t suggesting you become a Stormtrooper. I’m suggesting that taking that wretched thing off and coming with me to a place where you could learn to use all that power, and do something important in this life seems like a better option than what you’ve chosen.”

“That’s probably the nicest pitch I’ve got from your side,” Ben said, using his pinkie to wipe away a smudge of makeup. “If you take your clothes off and then ask me again I promise to consider it.”

“Be serious,” Hux said. He wasn’t angry, he was…

“It’s not a proposal worth taking seriously!” Ben said. “What part of having your Supreme Leader in my head every minute of the day while we fuck up the galaxy sounds like something I’d want to do?"

“But it’s hurting you,” Hux said, bewildered.

That’s what it was, Ben realized. His decisions simply didn’t make sense to Hux. Some men would have made him torture them before they’d even tell him they didn’t know something. Hux, on the other hand, was a survivor and his self-preservation instincts were much stronger. Ben had never tried to read someone’s mind like he did to Hux, so what he’d got from him was confusing and hard to piece together. He understood enough to know that Hux had seen pain at a young age, and he’d also understood that Hux didn’t shy away from inflicting it on others. Ultimately, as long as it kept him from being hurt, Hux was willing to compromise. But he’d come back to talk to Ben, even though he was scared, and Ben thought it was the least he could do, to try and explain.

“Here’s the thing,” Ben said, and now he was serious, “having the Force-dampener on feels terrible, and it never lets up. I had to start taking painkillers just to get through my day. By the end of the first year, the recommended doses wouldn’t touch the pain, so I had to switch to the nastier stuff. Meanwhile, it got to the point where the dampener wasn’t enough. I added something to kill off the midi-cholorians in my blood and if I’d thought the collar was bad, I’d had no idea. Half of what I take is to counteract the side effects of that drug, and the array of painkillers I take.

“I started falling a lot. Sometimes because the painkillers made me stoned, sometimes because the other medications gave me vertigo. After the third public incident, people started saying I was a drunk, or a spice addict, so I got the cane. My medication is doing a lot of damage to my marrow, so I get sick a lot and my bones are fragile. I fell in the sonic and cracked three ribs and broke my arm.

“I can’t eat anything spicy. Or too salty. Or too rich. Or anything with Hjeni sauce for some reason. When I have to travel, it knocks me on my ass for a week, because any change in altitude sets off my vertigo. Every part of my life is dictated by how bad my pain is, and every day I’m on these medications my tolerance builds up a little bit more. Right now my regimen keeps me functioning.”

Hux nodded, picking up the thread of what Ben was trying to tell him. “But eventually you’ll develop a tolerance for whatever it is you’re taking now,” he said.

“And then I’ll have to find something else, and every time that happens the 'something else’ is much worse for me, ” Ben agreed. “I’ve had two bone marrow transplants and tried replacing all my blood with donor blood, but I can’t wash the Force out of my body. Nothing else I’ve done has severed my connection consistently and effectively as this collar and the scorched-earth medication. So I wear the collar, and I take the medication, despite everything else. And I’ve done it for five. Pfassking. Years.”

“Even though it hurts.” Hux didn’t look as though he wanted the answer, but he said, “Because your other options are worse?”

Ben propped his elbow up on a bent knee and hooked his fingers over the necklace, just sort of tugging on it. “The dark side would destroy me. Piece by piece I would become something else, and if I’m not me, then _that thing_ with my face has killed me. There’s just two Solos in the galaxy; I’m not making my dad be the only one again.”

“Are you trying to be funny?”

“Shut up, no. You know better; you know my politics. Even if the dark side didn’t mean a living death, there’s not a snowball’s chance on Tatooine that I’m going to become Snoke’s karking apprentice, or whatever else it is he wants because I think his plan for galactic domination is bad and I don't want to do it. I will fight him, because I’d rather be in pain than be turned into something evil, and I will keep fighting until one of us is dead.”

Hux mulled that over. Ben wasn’t sure if he could imagine anything he believed in that was stronger than his survival instinct, but he was trying.

Since Hux was willing to entertain his point of view, Ben decided to press his luck. “While we’re on the subject: have you considered leaving the First Order?”

Hux didn’t say anything, he just looked at Ben with a disappointed, somewhat sad expression on his face. After a long silence, he stood and held out a hand. Confused, Ben took it. He was more confused still when Hux bowed over it and kissed his knuckles.

“It would be disloyal of me to wish you luck,” Hux said, letting go. “I hope you reconsider. You’re a remarkable man, and I enjoyed spending time with you. Mostly.”

It was a goodbye then.

“I need to know what you’re planning on saying,” Ben said.

Hux shrugged fatalistically. “If anyone asks, I’ll tell them the rumours were right: Senator Amidala is a phenomenal lay.”

“It is the kind of statement that diverts the flow of a conversation,” Ben said. He wasn’t too worried that Hux would talk to the wrong people; it was too good of a secret. He’d hold on to it in case he needed it later. “Thanks.”

Hux was all the way to the door when he stopped and said, a little hesitantly. “Good luck, Ben. Be careful.”

“Never am,” Ben said. “But you too.”

It took Paige several minutes to come back after Hux had left, which seemed odd to Ben. She walked in, dragging her feet, with an exceedingly guilty expression on her face. Paige was brave, and good, and honest, and she was a terrible liar.

“What did you do?” Ben said.

“Nothing,” Paige said and immediately started worrying at a hangnail on her thumb with her teeth.

“Tico,” Ben said. “What did you do?”

“Nothing!” Paige dropped into the chair next to the bed and got out her datapad. “You have a holocall in a few hours, and we need to go over some notes before—”

Ben put a hand over the datapad screen, looked her in the eyes, and waited. She broke in two seconds.

“It’s none of my business,” she said. “And it isn’t yours either. You’re supposed to be resting and, anyway, if we’ve learned anything from all this, we’ve learned to stay away from the First Order. Right?”

“What about the First Order isn’t our business?”

She groaned. “Ugh! After the galaxy’s worst choice for a booty call left here, I might have seen him...getpulledintoaspeederbyNikto,” she said in a rush and then, more slowly, “but he’s probably fine. They’re pals.”

Ben shoved the blankets off his legs and put his feet on the floor. “A dangerous cartel just grabbed Hux in broad daylight and _kidnapped him_ and you didn’t tell me right away?!” He hauled himself upright using the bar and glared at her.

Paige got up too, and took a step back. “No,” she said. “No. I’m not going to help you do… whatever you think you’re going to do. I’m sorry, Ben, but no.”

“Don’t you dare,” Ben said. “I swear on everything holy if you don’t help me I will never forgive you.”

“Then you’re going to need a new assistant,” Paige said. She dodged his attempt to grab her arm and backed away towards the door. “I’m calling Riis. You’re supposed to stay in bed. Luke said so!”

Ben didn’t bother shouting after her. He’d already lost precious minutes to her trying to keep the information from him. If she’d just told him right away…Ben took his cane down off the bar and tested his weight on it. His motherfucking, goddamn, useless fucking hip spasmed and nearly sent him to his knees. What would he have done with an extra few minutes anyway, Ben demanded of himself, angrily. He wasn’t exactly going to go sprinting down the street after a speeder. He would have needed a plan even if he could run around like an idiot, and he’d need one now. Just...a slightly more robust plan.

X X X

“This isn’t a plan,” Keed said, hands clenched so hard around the wheel of his speeder that his knuckles were white. “Benya, this is not a plan. It wasn’t even a full sentence. You just said the plan was ‘a rescue.’”

“All you have to do is drive me there,” Ben said. He would have driven his own damn self except he wasn't allowed to operate a speeder ever since he'd crashed during a dizzy spell. “No one asked for your commentary.”

Keed hit the horn and gestured rudely at another driver even though he was the one weaving in and out of traffic with no regard to the speed limit. “What does it matter if a cartel decides they don’t want to do business with the First Order anymore? Their double-cross doesn’t matter because you’re not in a cartel, or the First Order. Whatever bad shit happens to Hux is because bad shit always happens when you’re in a cartel or the First Order and he’s getting what’s coming to him.”

Ben checked the charge on his blaster and wished his robe had pockets. “I’m going to pretend you didn’t suggest leaving someone to die.”

“FIRST ORDER!” Keel howled. “He’s First Order and he’s fighting in an army headed up by the creature that ruined your life! Why are we saving him!”

“If Di isn’t working for the Order anymore, then I’m not going to find the creature through their organization —his name is Snoke by the way— and Hux is the only lead I’ll have left.”

“That’s banthashit and you know it!” Keed said, banging a fist on the wheel. The speedometer began to creep up, and up, and up, as his agitation grew. “He’s not going to help you, he doesn’t have the information you want, and he’s _a really bad person!_ ”

“And I don’t want him to die!” Ben shouted back. “He got me off Ilum before it imploded, and he could have shot me in the throne room and he didn’t, and he told me to be careful, and I’m not going to let Rinnrivin Di shoot him in the head! I owe him more than that!”

Keed pulled the speeder over so abruptly it threw both of them painfully against their safetybelts. Keed didn’t put the speeder in park, but he made no move to get them on their way again, just staring at Ben. “Okay,” he said, in final tones. “You’re not making sense, and this is crazy. I should never have listened to you. You’re really sick, Benya. I need to get you to a doctor.” He put the speeder into reverse, like he was planning on turning around.

Ben put his hand over Keed’s on the shift stick. “He didn’t… not literally. I saw… I saw the future, alright,” Ben said. “Kind of. Some futures. He was there, and he pulled me out of the snow and saved my life. I know that’s not real in this life, and I know I sound crazy. Jal, please, I have to save him. Armitage Hux is important. To me. I think… I think he’s important to me.”

Together, Ben and Keed had come up with a lot of stupid ideas. They'd never let the other get into trouble on his own.

“Pfassk it, Ben!” Keed said, and put the speeder in drive. He pulled back into traffic and put his foot down like it was weighted, dodging other vehicles like a pro. “You better have more of a plan than me dropping you off at the door.”

“Uh,” Ben said, then, “Watch the road!” because Keed was glaring at him and not looking at what he was doing and he was going really fast. Ben’s stomach lurched unhappily and he had to swallow bile. “You’re dropping me off,” he said. “If I can’t talk my way out in five minutes, call the police. Call Paige too, she can put you through to the Senate security, because if I get held hostage by a drug cartel they’re going to want to know.”

“My ancestors are rolling in their graves,” Keed moaned. “We’re about to cause a diplomatic incident.”

“Your ancestors don’t have graves, your people do sky burials,” Ben said. “And it’s not like we haven’t caused a diplomatic incident before.”

“The son of a senator getting shitfaced and trying to streak through an off-limits military zone isn’t the same as you deliberately putting yourself in the hands of a drug cartel!”

“It barely counts as streaking if you’re in a wheelchair,” Ben said. “The guards couldn’t even see my ass. Kriff, that's our exit.”

“They could see mine!” Keed swerved wildly across three lanes of traffic and took the exit so fast the entire speeder tilted thirty degrees. “I’m starting to think we might be bad influences on each other.”

X X X

By the time Ben got through the cantina to the back rooms, he could barely put any weight on his left leg at all. It was better if he locked his knee when he tried to move it, but by the time he got to the door leading to Di’s office, he was biting his tongue so he didn’t vocalize the whimpers that wanted to sneak out of him every time he took a step.

One of Di’s men was guarding the room and he put his hand on his blaster when he saw Ben struggling towards him. “Kylo? The pfassk are you wearing?”

Ben made an expression that was supposed to be an ingratiating smile but came out like more of a grimace or a snarl. “I need to see Di now.”

“Can’t let you in. He’s in a meeting. And you know the rules. Holster that blaster or hand it over.”

“I don’t have a holster. Or any pockets,” Ben said. “I need you to let me in. Right now.”

The Nikto sighed. “Have it your way,” he said, and reached for Ben’s blaster.

Ben shot him point blank in the head.

The body dropped to the floor with a soft thud, blood pooling around it. Ben stared at it a little blankly. He hadn’t thought. He’d never. He’d killed so many people in his nightmares but he’d never actually hurt anyone.

The blaster whined and Ben was pulled out of the mental spiral he was headed down. Abruptly the whining turned into a descending note, and then it was silent, all the indicator lights turned off.

“Don’t do this to me now,” Ben pleaded, fumbling with the gun, trying to balance his weight, hold his cane, and fiddle with the blaster to see what loose connection had jammed it.

The door swung open and Ben suddenly had the horrible realization that he’d walked into a cartel stronghold with a malfunctioning blaster and Jal Keed as his backup plan. “I’m here for the Major,” Ben said. “So let me in or I’ll blow your head off just like your friend here.”

The blaster let out a sad little puff of smoke, as if to say, “No he won’t.”

The Nikto weren’t gentle about taking the blaster as soon as they realized he couldn’t fire it, and they weren’t gentle when they dragged him into the room, his cane left on the hallway floor with the corpse. He couldn’t keep his balance when they let go, and he collapsed in a heap at Di’s feet.

“He shot Fha Ware!” one of the men said. “What do you want we should do with him?”

Ben looked up at Di. “Hello, Di,” he said, clutching his hip. He wasn’t sure he would be able to get up without significant help. “I’m here for the Major.”

“You have got to be kidding me,” Hux said, which seemed a bit judgemental, considering he was tied to a chair.

Some time between Hux getting jumped and being tied to the chair, Di’s men had taken his coat and his jacket, although they’d left him his boots. His shirt had been ripped open, probably during a search for weapons, and his undershirt was spotted with blood that had dripped from the cut on his cheek. He’d been struck in the face hard enough to split the skin, and he was already starting to bruise around it.

Di had Hux’s dogtags in his hand and he was leaning on his desk, very casually, next to an enormous cleaver. He didn’t seem to know what to do about Ben’s sudden appearance.

“You told them the First Order doesn’t give a damn about you, right?” Ben said to Hux. “They can send you back in pieces and they still won’t negotiate.”

Hux spat blood onto the floor. “Obviously I told him that. It was the first thing I mentioned.” He glared at Di. “If you’re unhappy with the terms of your arrangement with the Order, I can bring my superiors whatever new proposal you—”

Di hit him hard enough to snap his head back. “Shut up,” he said. “Nikto don’t answer to the First Order any more. They give me what I want, or I give them your hands, then your feet. Then your head.”

Hux groaned, head lolling to the side, and then tipping down against his chest.

“Hux,” Ben said, “Hux, don’t pass out.”

“Told you not to fuck him,” Di said to Ben. “But now you got yourself involved, and you shot Fha Ware. So I’ve got to make an example of you.”

"Wait!" Ben said.

He was out of time. Keed and the cavalry wouldn't get to them in time. He was unarmed. Hux might be unconscious. He was out of options. And he'd already done it once, a second time couldn't do too much damage.

"I have something you want,” he said. Ben unlocked his Force-dampening collar and held it out to Di.

"Oh yeah?" Di said, but he took it. "I doubt that."

Ben grabbed onto the edge of the desk, and pulled with everything he had to get upright. His vision swam and he gagged, choking on bile.

“What’m I supposed to do with this?” Di said, sneering.

“Add it to your collection,” Ben said and opened himself to the Force.

Di had a collection of antique and rare weapons that he’d lined the walls of the office with. They were displayed nicely with little plaques that said whose weapons they had been. Ben had thought he might be able to call a knife to him; Di had enough to make someone into a pincushion. But on the wall, in a less prominent spot than some of the more obviously exotic blades, Di had three lightsabers.

Two of them had been gutted, and were nothing but hollow hilts. Nothing more than scrap metal, really. But there on the wall, displayed like the head of some dead animal, was the lightsaber of a Jedi knight, kyber stil inside it. Ben could feel it there, emitting the song he'd heard before, when he still thought he could be a Jedi.

“The fuck is this a weapon?” Di said, looking at Ben’s necklace.

Ben had built his own lightsaber, just like every Jedi before him. He’d meditated with a kyber crystal and become attuned to it, a sort of bonding in the Force. The will of the sword and the will of the Jedi were one and the same. He might have left all that behind, but he understood the process well enough.

A Jedi had meditated over the kyber now hanging on Di’s wall. They had shared one will.

The kyber didn’t resonate with Ben. It did not like him.

Ben had run out of patience for what people did or did not like about him a long time ago, especially when it came to the Force.

He held out his hand and the lightsaber broke free from its mount. It flew across the room and smacked into his palm. All the overhead lights blew out, showering everyone in sparks.

The Force was in him. Like lightning, all through him. And it hurt, just like it had before, but Ben was ready this time. He let it smash though his body, everything made clear and sharp, the pain feeding into the Force, making him stronger. He could feel it, every ache, and every agony, but it wasn’t going to slow him down any more.

“Don’t be stupid,” Di said, but he was staring at Ben like he didn’t understand how he had got the weapon in the first place. “What’re you going to do with an old sword handle?”

Ben ignited the lightsaber, a bright green blade slicing through the air with a humming sound he hadn’t realized he’d missed.

The kyber fought him. If he tried to use the lightsaber, he would lose.

Ben tightened his grip around the hilt. Kyber had perfect resonance. It was made to focus and channel energy.

He was one with the Force and it moved through him.

He poured his will into the sword. All his fear and his sorrow. All his pain. All his rage.

Kyber was made to focus and channel energy. That was its purpose. So it would _do it for him._

There was a sickening crack, like a bone breaking, and the green blade vanished, although the lightsaber was still on, the hum and crackle of the plasma still audible. The room was plunged into shadow.

And then a red light appeared. It gathered at the hilt and slowly spread downwards, like dye being pumped through the veins of a living thing. It formed a lattice over a colourless void where the blade was supposed to be. A void that hummed like a lightsaber without any light.

Hux lifted his head. His lip was split and there was a thin line of blood down his chin in a sick mirror of Ben’s paint. “That can’t be good,” he said, the gleam of the blade reflecting in his eyes.

Ben lifted the sword and pointed it at Di. The red flared bright and sank through the void, filling it, until the lightsaber blade was a solid, crimson beam.

“Let him go.”

Di gestured impatiently at his men. “Shoot him.”

Ben swept the first blaster bolt aside with a wave of his hand. It ricocheted into the wall, burning a hole through the durasteel.

“Give him to me,” Ben said and took a step.

He was overflowing with power. It tore at him, but as his blood burned, and his bones ached, and the power tried to carve out his insides to create a hollow place for itself, he didn’t fight. He let it swallow him whole, feeding it, making his broken flesh a home for it.

The lightsaber had broken under his will, and it wouldn’t fight him now. He was alight. Untouchable, unstoppable, inhuman.

Ben deflected another a blaster bolt back to the source, killing the Nikto that had fired it.

“Give him to me,” Ben said. “And I will give you a good death.”

Di had backed up as fast as he could go, blaster drawn, and he shot wildly at Ben and in Hux’s general direction. He missed.

Ben reached out and threw Di across the room, sending him crashing through the door behind him.

Hux licked blood off his lips. “Look at you,” he said, as covetous as he’d been when Ben had been laid out for him in bed.

One of Di’s men had run for it, the other tried to shoot at Ben, but Ben had him. He held the man still, unable to resist his power. It was nothing for Ben to reach into his mind and tear it apart. His mind was weak. He was weak. The man screamed, for a little while, but then was silent. None of these men were anything. Not to him.

Ben took another step and his knee started to buckle under him. He snarled, furious, and the building around them shook, dust and plaster crumbling down from the ceiling.

“Untie me,” Hux said, pulling against the ropes binding him to the chair. “We need to go.”

The lightsaber hilt was starting to heat up in Ben’s hand, and the floor tilted underneath him. It didn’t matter. None of it mattered.

“Ben,” Hux said, a little less confidently. He was looking around, craning his neck to try and see the floor and under the desk. “Ben, where’s the suppressor?”

“He dies,” Ben said. “For defying me. For touching you.”

Hux’s face was a mask of shadows and harsh angles in the red glow of the lightsaber. He was cruel, and selfish, and he dreamed of a weapon that would swallow stars whole, and he was Ben’s. He was Ben’s, and Di had dared to threaten his life.

“Stay there,” Ben said. He reached up, clenching his fist like he was grabbing onto an overhead bar. Holding himself upright by the Force alone, dragging his leg behind him so he didn’t have to move his hip, Ben advanced towards the splintered door. He couldn’t step over the wreckage, so he just blasted it out of his way with a wave of concussive force.

The hilt of the lightsaber scorched his palm, the skin blistering as small cracks appeared in the casing. Ben wrapped his power around the hilt like a containment field. He didn't have time for whatever was malfunctioning. The lightsaber would stay together. He would make it hold together. It would not fight him. Nothing would stand against him.

The ceiling of the hallway wouldn’t hold him, so Ben reached out and dug his fingers into the durasteel wall, the Force warping the metal under his hand. He left craters in his wake as he limped down the hallway. The sharp shocks of pain fed his anger. His anger fed the Force. The Force made him strong.

Di was bleeding. He’d left a trail behind him. Down the hallway, through the door at the end.

He was going to make Ben walk all that way. Ben was going to make him suffer.

Ben ripped the door off its hinges and smashed it through the wall. “There’s nowhere to go, Di,” he called out. “There’s nowhere in the galaxy you can hide from me.”

He swatted another blaster bolt out of the air.

His ears rang with a high-pitched tone and the floor tilted under him again, but he held onto the mangled doorframe, lightsaber buzzing loudly in his other hand.

“You can shove your good death up your ass, Kylo,” Di shouted, and shot at him again. “You can’t fight all of us!”

He had killed them. He had crushed their minds, and spilled their blood with his blade. There were no more.

Shots rang out behind him. There was shouting, the crash of a door being broken down, and Jal Keed’s voice screaming, “Oh shit!” before Ben heard something like a speeder smashing through a cantina wall into a well-stocked bar, and then a lot more shooting.

None of it mattered to him. They couldn’t stop him. He had Di in his jaws and no one would snatch him away now.

“You lost that chance,” Ben said. “I will unmake you. I will cut you from the fabric of the universe.”

This time when Di shot at him, he caught the bolt so it hung suspended in mid air, straining unnaturally.

Someone was approaching him down the hallway. They thought he was so confined to his flesh that he couldn’t feel the very threads of the universe strung together, plucked like the web of a spider.

He turned in time to block the shot with his lightsaber, but turning so quickly was a mistake. His knee buckled and his vision tunneled down, the whine in his ears so loud he couldn’t hear the shouting from the cantina as the police swarmed over the area; come to save a man who was more than a man, and who didn’t need saving.

He was going to rip the whole building down around them if he had to, to get to Di. He was—

Ben fell. He caught himself badly, his working hip and his fist smashed into the durasteel floor, the blade of the lightsaber cutting through the metal as he lost his grip on it. His head was swimming, but he was… he could…

Through the black threatening to pull him under, he saw a Nikto aiming at him. Then Hux, behind him, wrists scraped bloody. The guttering lights overhead caught on the blade of the knife in his hand. He cut the throat of the man about to shoot Ben in the head and said, “You could have just untied me.”

Hux pried the blaster out of the dead gangster’s hand and checked it over, popping out the gas cartridge and the power pack before slotting them back into place. “It would have saved me the absolute fuckery I just did to my shoulder and wrists.”

The blaster bolt still hanging in the air trembled. He couldn’t hold it. It was slipping out of reach. Hux stepped to the side a moment before Ben’s resolve wavered under the encroaching faint. The bolt shot through the air and punched a huge hole in the wall where Hux had been standing a moment before. Ben tipped to the side, his centre of gravity as ephemeral as the Force.

He tried to sit up and slid back down where he’d fallen.

Hux crouched next to him and carefully flicked the malfunctioning lightsaber off. “Where’s Di?” He used his bloodied knife to pry the hilt casing open. “Ben, focus. Is Di still in there? Your idiot friend drove his speeder through Di’s backup and I’m sorry to say he brought the karking law with him.”

The Force was in Ben. He was going to get up, he was going to take Di’s head off his body for his defiance.

Hux flipped his grip on the knife and popped the kyber out, destroying the hilt entirely.

Ben tried to protest, but all that came out was a moan.

Hux tucked the knife back into his boot and pushed Ben’s hair out of his eyes, lifting Ben’s chin so he was looking into Hux’s bruised and blood-spattered face. “Listen to me, you were kidnapped by a dangerous cartel because you’re a senator. I happened to be in the right place at the right time. I am not with the First Order. You do not have the Force. You did not kill several heavily armed Nikto gang members. You are the victim of a terrible crime and not a meddlesome, dangerous, _brilliant_...” He seemed to lose track of what he was saying, or maybe Ben had.

Hux leaned in and kissed him hard on the mouth.

“Let go of it now,” Hux said. “You can let it go.”

“Di,” Ben managed to say, elbow wobbling and then buckling too.

He couldn’t see much as Hux stood, leaving him there on the floor. Just Hux’s boots, not so shiny anymore, stepping past him. Three shots rang out. He heard Di scream, and then a fourth shot.

Hux’s boots came back, then the rest of Hux as he crouched back down. He had Ben’s collar.

“Don’t.” Ben said. He thought he might be slurring. “Don’t make me.”

“I’m sorry,” Hux said, sounding truly remorseful. “But you’ll thank me when you’ve got your head on again.” He fastened it around Ben’s throat, sitting down so he could get Ben’s feet and elevate them higher than his heart.

“I was kidnapped by drug lords,” Ben mumbled, trying to catch hold of Hux’s arm, but he couldn’t focus enough to figure out the depth perception. He was fading as quickly as the Force was leaving him again. “You saved me. I can’t use the Force.”

Hux picked up the heated metal of the lightsaber hilt and tossed into the twisted wreckage that used to be a door. “That’s right,” he said. “No one has to know.”

Ben smiled at him. “You saved a senator of the New Republic,” he said as the dark rushed up to swallow him. “They’re gonna give you a _medal._ ”

The look on Hux’s face was priceless. He was still gaping at Ben, paint and blood smeared from nose to chin when the Senate guardsmen rushed into the hallway and Ben lost the fight with consciousness.

X X X

There was an assortment of news feeds on Ben’s datapad and he was sitting on the edge of his bed, fully dressed, reading the headlines with no small amount of pleasure.

ARMY AMASSING IN UNKNOWN REGIONS  
FIRST ORDER IN LEAGUE WITH ORGANIZED CRIME  
SENATOR AMIDALA SAYS WAR DECLARED BY FIRST ORDER NEW REPUBLIC MUST RESPOND

Leia was on the comm and hollering at him so loudly that her voice was audible all the way in every room of the apartment. “...Jal Keed’s speeder sticking out the side of a cartel cantina! You two laser brains only share one brain cell between you, and neither of you ever uses it! He didn’t last two seconds before telling me about your ‘plan.’ You’re damn lucky he was there. His poor mothers are having fits. They’re worried he’ll be arrested for running over cartel members. I had to talk them off a ledge!”

Hux appeared in the door of the bedroom and leaned against the frame, listening in with great amusement.

“And then you tell everyone that the gang is working for the First Order, and they kidnapped you? That’s banthashit. You just picked a fight with an entire army! What were you thinking!”

“You’ve been talking about the First Order threat—” Ben tried to put in.

“I didn’t mean you should start a war by single-handedly raiding a cartel!"

Ben smiled helplessly down at the comm. “I gotta go, Mum,” he said. “I’ll talk to you later.”

“I am not even remotely finished with you, Ben Organa-Solo,” Leia said. “And if I see so much as a hint that you’re still screwing that First Order—”

“Good _bye_ , Mum,” Ben said firmly, and ended the call.

Hux got onto the bed behind Ben, investigating the twenty tiny buttons down the back of his court gown Ben had worn to his most recent police interview. “You’re oddly cheerful. Haven’t you seen the tabloids?”

“She’s yelling at me,” Ben said, a little choked up. “She’s not scared I’m going to die.”

“I’m not going to pretend any of that makes sense to me. This, I have no problem understanding.” Hux briefly took the datapad and pulled up a few tabloids and showed him the headlines that were less news than they were shameless gossip and lies.

THE SENATOR AND THE SITH LORD  
SENATOR AMIDALA SECRET TWIN  
LOVE CHILD OF SHEEV PALPATINE?  
PROOF OF BIGFOOT

"That's not nice," Ben said. "I know they're large. I'm a tall man."

Hux looked at the datapad. "Oh for fuck's sake. Not that."

"There's no proof of anything," Ben said. "Just because some drug-peddling gangster says they saw me kill someone doesn’t mean I did. If the tabloid hacks want to say I'm my own evil twin, or that Leia had a secret affair with the Eenthis Monster, that’s their business. You didn’t get your hands cut off and sent to the First Order. I didn’t get shot. Keed’s going to lose his license, and I’m pretty sure he killed someone when he ran them over, so he’s going to need a therapist, but we won. We came out on top, Hux.”

“If you say so,” Hux said.

Two days of lying to law enforcement and dodging Ben’s friends and family had thinned Hux’s temper, but his hands were gentle as he unfastened the first of the buttons.

“You didn’t have to go in, in person,” Hux said. “They should’ve come to you.”

“You didn’t have to say the words, ‘no thanks are necessary, it was my patriotic duty as a good citizen of the New Republic,’ but life’s funny like that.”

“They _were_ going to try and give me a medal,” Hux said indignantly. “Which is the most idiotic thing I’ve ever…” he trailed off, muttering to himself.

Ben pulled the main pin holding his hair in place free, and the whole twisted loop of it uncoiled and fell directly into Hux’s way. He paused in his unbuttoning, and swept Ben’s hair to the side so he could kiss the back of his neck.

“You declared war on the First Order by rescuing an officer of the First Order,” Hux said. “I’m genuinely impressed.”

“I’m impressive,” Ben said, head tipping forward so Hux had better access, should he want it.

“You’re a problem.” Hux shifted out from behind Ben to kneel in front of him. “I suppose this is your plan to find and kill Snoke.”

Ben reached back to see how many buttons were left. It was most of them. Hux had been taking his time. “It seemed more likely to succeed than showing up with a second-hand lightsaber and a can-do attitude,” he said. “Are you going to get the rest of those or no?”

With the same slow deliberation he’d been using on the buttons, Hux slid his strong hands up Ben’s legs, gathering his skirts as he did so. “In a minute,” Hux said. When he’d reached Ben’s knees, he left the fabric bunched up as it was and slipped his hands under skirts and between Ben’s thighs, coaxing them apart.

Ben said, all in a rush, “Don’t build the Starkiller. It worked. But it didn’t get you what you wanted.”

“You mean it won’t get me what I want,” Hux said. “In the future. If I build the thing I know for a fact I haven’t told you about.”

Ben’s “Yes,” turned into more of a moan as Hux rubbed his cock through the soft, slippery fabric of his underwear. He’d thought Hux might appreciate something a little more fancy than a pair of old briefs. Hux kept his hand on Ben’s cock but shifted so he was sitting at his shoulder. It gave him plenty of access to the buttons, and Ben’s erection.

Hux popped another button open with surprising dexterity with his left hand and dragged his thumbnail up the bared skin to the nape of Ben’s neck and kissed him there again. “But it works?”

Ben pushed up into Hux’s hand, his own bunched up in the fabric of his skirts overtop of where Hux was touching him. “Yes, shit, it works. It’s derivative.”

“I beg your pardon?” Hux said, letting Ben grind against his palm for a while while he focused on the buttons again.

“It’s derivative of the Death Stars. Do better. Blowing something up is easy. How would you stop the Starkiller?” Ben wasn’t a very patient person generally, and Hux’s slow pace was going to kill him. He grabbed Hux by the back of the head and pulled him into a kiss. “No one's figured out a planetary defense system against a weapon like that,” Ben said when he stopped to catch his breath.

“I’m not joining the New Republic,” Hux said. And he said it again, afterwards, but he sounded less convinced of it every time Ben added to the list of reasons that being in the First Order was a criminal waste of Hux’s military acumen and potential.

He was still refusing to do the smart thing and listen to Ben several days later. Instead, he was saying goodbye.

He’d shown up with a duffle, on his way to the spaceport, heading back to the Unknown Regions. The son of a bitch had done it first thing in the morning too, before Ben took his meds, while he was still groggy and slow, propped up in front of his vanity, contemplating his day.

“You’re making a mistake,” Ben said. “I saw it. I saw—”

"Just because you hallucinated some alternate futures where we were friends, or lovers, or I saved your life, doesn't matter,” Hux snapped. “That’s not real. We had two conversations, you tortured me, you showed up to save my life, and now we've had a few more conversations. We fucked around a lot. That's it. That's not enough." He sighed and reached into his pocket. “I thought about leaving and not saying anything, but that seemed… I wanted to give you this.” He put something into Ben’s hand and then stepped back, like he was worried Ben would try to stop him from leaving by force. Or by Force, maybe.

Ben looked down at his palm. Hux had saved the kyber. And now he was giving it to Ben.

“It’s cracked,” Ben said.

“Don’t blame me, it was cracked when I took it out of the lightsaber,” Hux said defensively.

Ben turned it over in his fingers. “Huh. That explains the stress on the hilt.” He shot Hux a rueful glance. “I was holding it together with the Force. Two more seconds and it probably would’ve blown my arm clean off.”

Hux raised his eyebrows but kept his peace. “So it’s useless?”

It had been a long time since he’d been Luke’s student, but Ben remembered reading something… “Makashi,” he said. “It’s a combat style. Doesn't matter. Some of the practitioners had lightsabers with quillons. That might vent enough power from the main beam to stabilize it.” There had also been a fair number of Sith lords who utilized quillons, but that didn’t seem worth mentioning.

“Well, try not to blow your arm off,” Hux said. “They’re nice arms.”

“Don’t get too attached. My family doesn’t have a great track record when it comes to retaining limbs.”

Hux didn’t laugh. He just straightened himself up and pressed a light, fleeting kiss to Ben’s lips, barely touching him at all. He didn’t even get any paint on himself. “I have to go. It’s not going to get any easier the longer I stay.” Hux looked very unhappy and very determined to make himself that way. “Take care of yourself, Ben.”

"You make General by thirty," Ben said. "If you stay here."

"You're lying."

"I'm not," Ben lied.

Hux made general by thirty in the First Order, in some other universe, so who's to say he couldn't do the same in their own, fighting on a different side. Just because Ben hadn't actually seen it, didn't mean it couldn't happen.

"The higher you climb the closer you’ll get to Snoke,” Ben said. “I’m not the only one who can read minds. What do you think he’s going to do to you when he finds out you helped me?”

Hux shook his head. “I didn’t help you,” he protested, but Ben could see he had got to him. The little seeds of doubt were taking root.

“When you’ve had enough,” Ben said, “I’ll be waiting.”

Hux picked up his duffle. “Careful with your head, Jenny,” he said, and walked away.

"I saved you!" Ben shouted after him. "In some cultures that means you're stuck with me!"

Hux would come back, Ben thought. It might take weeks, or months, or maybe years, but Hux would start to wonder. And he’d start to worry. If he was very stubborn he might hold out long enough that Snoke found out what had happened and actually torture him.

Ben was going to be seriously pissed off if he had to save Hux from the First Order’s bad choices for a second time. Or, at least he’d say he was. He’d let Hux make it up to him.

“Senator?”

Ben blinked and looked up as Paige and Dosheny peered around the door of his dressing room. Probably Paige was worried she’d catch him in the middle of something she didn’t want to see.

Ben closed his fist around the red kyber. “I’m decent,” he said. “Dosheny, can you grab that datapad for me, there’s some pictures I want you to see.”

Paige rolled her eyes at him. “Never in your life.” She leaned over his shoulder as he pulled up a file for Dosheny. “That better not be what I think it is.”

Dosheny pushed at her so she could see too. “What is it?”

“Ideas,” Ben said. “I have rounds of interviews and Senate meetings, and who knows what else, and I want to look…”

Dosheny made a high-pitched squeak of excitement and snatched up the datapad, whipping out a stylus so she could start sketching on top of his reference pictures. “You’re going to be seven feet tall when I’m done with you,” she said breathlessly.

Paige didn’t look nearly as overjoyed as Dosheny. “Maybe that’s not a good idea, huh? Maybe now’s a good time to just lie low and let all this Kylo Ren talk blow over.” She peered at Dosheny’s scribbles and Ben took the opportunity to slip the kyber into one of the drawers of his vanity.

“I’m tired of hiding, and I’m tired of running,” Ben said and gave her a wry smile. “I’m not very good at running.”

“Did you really kill those Nikto?” Paige said. No one else had asked. Not even the police. They’d taken one look at his cane and swallowed his story hook, line, and sinker.

Ben said, “The point is that I want to _look_ like the kind of person that could do all those things.”

Paige didn’t seem very reassured but Dosheny was elbowing her out of the way so she could show Ben her first sketch. It was rough, but he thought he could see the shape of what she was imagining. She’d drawn a jagged diadem with three-quarters of a circle like a halo above it, spikes radiating from the circle. A long red veil would cover his hair at the back. She’d only illustrated the beginnings of a dress, but he thought it might be pleated to look like armour.

“Red nails,” Dosheny said. “Sharp as anything, tipped with metal. Mehndi on your hands, also red. Red cuffs with some kind of detailing, either painted fabric, or beading, or applique so the red graduates up into the black. Maybe the same colour gradation up from the hem.”

“Exactly like that,” Ben said and reached for the angled brush he used to apply the white base of his paint. “Like I won’t just start a war. I’ll finish it.”

THE END

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for joining me and [Lilander](https://twitter.com/lilandersw) on this epic journey! Don’t forget to go and tell her how awesome her art is because I am still super excited about it.
> 
> Ghans is the Proto-Indo-European root of the word goose. It is a beautiful day on Alderaan, and you are a horrible goose...
> 
> Veronica Ngo, who plays Paige Tico, is 5’6. Domhnall Gleeson/Armitage Hux is 6’1. Probably 6’2 in his boots.
> 
> Hux’s mother is never named in the canon afaik so I made one up.
> 
> Someone undoing a million tiny buttons for their lover is sexy. I don’t make the rules. 
> 
> Makashi is the name of Form II of lightsaber combat. It relies on precision and control instead of power and is good for crossguard lightsabers, apparently.
> 
> The idea of “a good death” is something that Ren (original leader of the KoR) talked about. If you wanted to join the KoR you had to give someone a good death. In other words: kill a dude and maybe you can join our gang.
> 
> Does Bigfoot exist in the galaxy far, far away? I don't know; does he exist in this galaxy? The Eenthis Monster is something I made up.
> 
> Ben should probably...not lean into the whole red and black theme, amirite lads?


End file.
